AE 506 – Expression: Out of the Blue

A male surfer’s been killed in a shark attack near Wedge Island north of Perth. The attack happened just after 9 O’clock local time. Joining us now for more on the story is Sky News Perth reporter Michael Hopkins. Mike, what do we know at this stage?

Yes, hello. Well, what we know at this stage is that police have confirmed that it was, indeed, a fatal shark attack at Wedge Island, a holiday spot to Perth’s north at 9 O’clock this morning. Now, police are still searching the area with boats and also with quad bikes on the beach in a bid to find the surfer’s remains.

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What is up, guys? What is up, you mob? How are you going? This is the first episode where you guys get to hear from ‘married Pete’.

So, how’s it going? Sorry, it’s been a little while with these expression episodes. I hope, as well, that you’ve got to check out the marriage and wedding episode that I published recently on the podcast and on YouTube. So, go and check that out if you haven’t and if you want to hear about all of what happened last weekend with Kel and me getting married. It was an amazing day. Anyway.

So, the video from the start there, guys, the video from the start was from Sky News, which you can check out at SkyNews.com.au. You can also check them out on YouTube and Sky News if you would like to watch stories about Australia and other parts of the world.

So, that was about a shark attack that occurred in Australia, and Australia is relatively well-known for having shark attacks relatively commonly, I guess. It’s up there in the most dangerous places in the world for sharks, but we will talk about that later on in the Aussie Fact as well as about some other animals that are more likely to kill you than sharks, and those animals might surprise you.

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Now, those deals are gone, unfortunately, for now. They are gone. However, you are still able to sign up. You just won’t save the same amount of money. Okay. So, you’ll just jump over to theAussieEnglishClassroom.com if you’re interested in that. Anyway. Enough of talking about all that stuff, guys. Get that out of the way and let’s get into the Aussie English joke.

So, today’s expression’s ‘out of the blue’ and that have me thinking about sharks. You might see the connection later on. And so, I thought I’ll try and find a shark joke. Okay. So, here’s the joke.

What did the seal with a broken arm say to the shark? What did a seal with a broken arm say did the shark?

Do not consume if ‘seal’ is broken. It’s so stupid. Do not consume if ‘seal’ is broken.

I wonder if you get that. Alright, let me explain. So, often when you go to the shops, if you buy something that’s in a jar or in some kind of packet, quite often it will say that if the seal of the jar of the seal of the packet is broken, don’t consume the food inside, because it means that air has gotten in and there may be bacteria in there and the food may have gone off, it may have gone bad. Okay. So, you’ll often see, ‘Do not consume if seal is broken’.

So, the joke here is that obviously a seal is also that animal, you know, that lives in the ocean and jumps on the land sometimes to sunbathe than have babies, but they are often hunted by sharks, and so, the seal with a broken arm says to the shark, ‘don’t consume if seal is broken’. Jesus. Anyway, guys.

Today’s expression is ‘out of the blue’ and this came from Fatimah in the Aussie English Classroom. We have the Facebook group. We vote on these expressions. Fatimah suggested this one and she crushed it, she did very well, and it got voted on by everyone. Let’s go through and define the words in ‘out of the blue’.

So, ‘out of something’, right. ‘Out of something’. If you’re out of something, it’s that you’re coming out of something, you’re exiting something, right. It’s sort of the opposite of going into something, ‘out of something’ is leaving something, from being within something. Okay. Pretty self-explanatory. I’m sure you guys know what ‘out of something’ is.

‘The blue’. Now, this might be more confusing. ‘Blue’ is obviously a colour, right. The sky is blue. The ocean is blue. My eyes are blue. What else is blue? I don’t know. Other things are blue. Anyway. In this case, though, it doesn’t refer to the colour, specifically. It’s referring to the sky, which I guess is blue. But ‘the blue’ in this case means the sky.

So, let’s define the expression ‘out of the blue’. I wonder if you guys have heard this. Something happens out of the blue, right. If it’s… just appears out of the blue. What could that mean?

‘Out of the blue’ means out of nowhere, to appear unexpectedly or surprisingly, you know. You’re not expecting that thing to happen or to appear. It is appearing out of the blue. It’s appearing out of nowhere.

So, ‘the blue’ in this case refers to the sky, the blue sky, as we said, and usually, thunderstorms with, you know, thunder and lightning, don’t tend to happen when there’s a clear blue sky. But when it does happen, it’s a surprise that no one expects, it’s unexpected, it’s surprising. And apparently an older version of this expression was ‘a bolt out of the blue’ or ‘a bolt from the blue’, which referred to a completely unexpected and surprising appearance of a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky, right, out of nowhere.

So, we can use this literally, if someone, say, appears in front of you. They appear out of nowhere. You know, it’s shocking, it’s surprising, unexpected. But we can use it to for things that people say or maybe emotions, you know, non-physical things, right. So, if someone suddenly says something or burps or yawns or, you know, does something like that where you could say, oh, that was out of the blue. You know, I got upset and it was out of the blue.

So, let’s go through some examples, guys, to try and show you how I would use this expression in my day-to-day life. Okay.

So, example number one. Imagine that you are going to the beach with your mates. You’re about to hit the beach. You want to go for a surf or a body board or a body surf or maybe just a cheeky dip in the ocean at your favourite beach, your favourite Australian beach, maybe Bondi Beach or Bell’s Beach down here where Rip Curl Pro is often held each year, the surfing competition. So, you all dive into it. You pile out of the car when you get to the beach. You put your wettie is on, or maybe you’re wearing board shorts, you put your boardies on, your grab your boards and you dive into the water to catch a first wave. The waves are about six foot. It’s incredibly clean, you know, it’s not choppy, it’s not… the water’s not rough, there’s an offshore wind as well making the waves perfect, and you and your mates are carving it up each time you catch one of these incoming waves. When all of a sudden, out of the blue, one of your mates spots a large fin pop above the surface of the water a few metres away. Now, you all panic, you all frantically start swimming to shore and fear the worst. You think, oh no, it’s going to be a shark and it’s going to ruin our awesome day. But it turns out to be a lone dolphin who wants to join your ranks to catch a wave or two itself. So, it just appeared out of the blue, unexpectedly, out of nowhere.

Example number two. You’re at home on a weekend and you plan on binge watching your favorite TV show, right. I was doing this recently watching The Walking Dead. So, you’ve got to drink out of the fridge, you know, your favorite beer, your favorite soft drink, you’ve got some chips or your favorite snack, and you’ve kicked back on the couch and you’ve put the first episode on. So, you get through most of the show, but the tension starts to build, the show starts to climax, there’s a bit of suspense, something big is about to happen in the show when all of a sudden, out of the blue, the power goes off, the TV screen goes black. You might scream out, no! I wanted to see what was going to happen. You’ll lose it, you get upset, because you can’t see what was about to happen on the show, because out of the blue, unexpectedly, surprisingly, out of nowhere, the power went out.

Example number three. You’re at home one day cleaning the house after your kids have been playing and they’ve made a bit of a mess of the place, right. They’d been mucking around with finger-paint or food or something. They’ve made a mess. So, you’re busy cleaning away, when all of a sudden, the doorbell goes or someone knocks on the door. So, you go and open it up and it turns out that it’s a long-lost friend who you haven’t seen since you were at school, you know, maybe 20 years ago. So, you might say, Wow! How did you know I was here? That’s so out of the blue. Where did you come from? I haven’t seen you in yonks. I haven’t seen you in donkey’s years. I haven’t seen you in ages. But what an awesome surprise. It’s great to see you even if it is randomly and out of the blue.

So, hopefully guys you understand the expression now ‘out of the blue’. It is for something to appear physically or figuratively out of nowhere, unexpectedly, surprisingly.

So, as usual, let’s go through a listen and repeat exercise where you guys can practice your pronunciation. You can work on your Australian accent if that is something that you are trying to master at the moment. Listen and repeat after me. Or work on the accent that you are currently targeting, you know, British, US, whatever it is, and say these words with that accent. Let’s go.

Out
Out of
Out of the
Out of the blue x 5

It’s pretty interesting, actually. There’s quite a bit of pronunciation and connected speech modifying there when I say those words by themselves or when I say them together, right. Out, out of, out of the, out of the blue. That’s interesting.

Anyway, we’ll go over that more in the Aussie English Classroom pronunciation video for this episode, guys. Remember to sign up to that if you are interested in improving your English and improving your pronunciation. TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com. Oh! And I almost forgot, we’ll go through a sentence and now we will conjugate through, ‘I appeared out of the blue’, ‘you appeared out of the blue’. Okay, so listen and repeat after me.

I appeared out of the blue

You appeared out of the blue

He appeared out of the blue

She appeared out of the blue

We appeared out of the blue

They appeared out of the blue

It appeared out of the blue

Man, there’s a lot of t-flaps going on there. ‘It appeared out of the blue’.

Alright. Aussie English Fact for the day, guys. So, sharks. I wanted to talk about shark attacks as they tend to occur out of the blue, right, and they’re a common occurrence in Australia, at least the media would have you believe this. It tends to always be one on the on the TV every week or two, you hear about a shark attack. And then I want to talk about shark culling, okay? And this is a hot topic that pollies, politicians, are always yacking about on the telly as well.

Alright, so unsurprisingly shark attacks have been happening in Australia since the first humans arrived here nearly 50,000 or 60,000 years ago when they first surrendered to the enticing ocean waters that surrounded the continent. The earliest shark attack that was fatal that’s on record occurred in the early years of British colonisation in Port Jackson where an Aboriginal woman was swimming and she was, quote, “bitten in two” by a shark.

Between the years of 1958 and 2018, there have been 536 shark attacks in Australia, and we are number two on the list of shark attacks in the world. 73 of these shark attacks proved to be fatal to the victims. Australia comes in at number two with the US at number one with more than double the number of shark attacks at 1104. But despite this, there are actually twice as many deaths in Australia as there are in the US who recorded only 35 fatalities in the same period of time. Interesting. It seems that, statistically speaking, in Australia you have the highest chance of being attacked and killed by a shark than anywhere else in the world.

If you’re interested in taking your chances at the most dangerous beach in Australia, then I suggest heading off to Coffin Bay in South Australia whose name seems appropriate, although, there may not be enough of you left to warrant using a coffin.

Although, shark attacks often receive a lot of air time on national and state news, you’re far more likely to be killed by a bunch of other less-suspecting and cute and cuddly animals Down Under.

In 2011, Australia’s National Coronial Information System, or NCIS, released its first report into the trends and patterns surrounding animal-related deaths in Australia where they evaluated the first decade of this century from the years 2000 to 2010. The report discovered that horses, including ponies and donkeys, were Australia’s most deadly animal causing 77 deaths in a 10-year period. So, 7.7 deaths a year.

Next on the list of cute and cuddly but more likely to kill you than a shark were cows, including bulls and cattle, which accounted for 33 deaths, 16 of which, interestingly enough, were during motor vehicle accidents. So, to any cows listening, get off the bloody road!

Number three on the list was man’s best friend, dogs, who killed 27 people from attacks most of which were children under the age of four and the elderly.

And the final unsuspecting death bringer to humans on this list before sharks is the iconic and much beloved Australian kangaroo, which accounted for 18 deaths, albeit, indirectly, through motor vehicle accidents. So, again, Skippy, get off the road!

Place five and six was a tie with bees and sharks both accounting for 16 deaths in a 10-year period. So, 1.6 deaths per year. So, there you go.

Next time you’re second guessing taking a dip at Bondi Beach for fear of being devoured by the tooth-filled gnashing jaws of a shark, remember, that you’re much more likely to die from animals like horses, cows, kangaroos, dogs, and even bees than you are sharks.

So, why do sharks attack humans? Are they hunting us like the movie Jaws famously depicts? The answer is definitely no. Feeding is not the reason that sharks attack humans. In fact, humans don’t provide enough high-fat meat for sharks, which need a lot of energy to power their large muscular bodies. Sharks are just inquisitive animals and have no hands to explore the world around them and these unknown objects that they might stumble across bobbing around in the ocean. Therefore, they’re left with a jaw full of razor-sharp teeth to satiate their curiosity and explore any objects they may come across. Unfortunately, for us though, one simple exploratory nip from a large shark is usually a grievous and life-threatening injury to any human when coming from a great white, a tiger, or a bull shark, the three sharks that are the most common culprits for human fatalities.

Unfortunately, beach-loving Australians are insistent on partaking in one of their favorite pastimes, their favourite hobbies, enjoying the beaches and oceans around the country. And shark attacks often cause hysteria in the media and are quickly commandeered by politicians looking to gain favour and win votes by stirring up fear and promising easy solutions.

This is where the contentious issue of shark nets and drum lines come into play in Australia. Shark nets are often placed in the water to prevent sharks entering certain beaches, but they are criticised by environmentalists and conservationists alike who claim that these nets are extremely destructive to marine life and often harm or even kill sharks, which are an important part of a healthy marine ecosystem.

Drum lines are unmanned aquatic traps used to lure, capture, and kill large sharks using baited hooks connected to floating drums that indiscriminately kill any shark curious enough to take a bite of the bait. They’re often deployed in locations after an attack in the hopes of catching the perpetrating shark that attacked a human or at least reducing the numbers of big sharks in the area. However, like shark nets, drum lines have been heavily criticised as being ineffective, cruel, unethical, non-scientific, and environmentally destructive. One analogy I saw was if a tradie murdered one person and then disappeared, would killing five other Australian tradies at random make Australia safer?

So, finishing up, every time you decide to take a dip in the ocean you’re obviously at risk of a shark attack. True. But you’re much more likely to die from things like kangaroos and horses in car accidents than you are from a shark. So, just be safe, be smart, and if you want to bring your risk to 0%, stay out of the water. Simple as that.

Anyway, guys thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure when you guys join me and listen to these episodes. I know that they’re helping a lot of people. You get back to me, you send me emails, you send me comments on Instagram, on Facebook, and it means a lot to me, guys, and I’ll want to give you a big, big, big thank you from both me and Kel to everyone who gave us their well-wishes and congratulations after the wedding. That really meant a lot to both of us. So, thank you so much, guys, and we were so happy to be able to share that experience with you as well on Instagram and on YouTube.

So, that’s it for this week guys. I hope you enjoy the episode. I hope to see you in the Aussie English Classroom and I will chat to you very soon. See you, guys.

AE 477 – Expression: Clear the Air

What is going on, guys? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English.

Yes, that was me singing at the start. So, I used to be a singer back in the day and I kind of miss it a bit, but I just haven’t had a chance to do it, and today’s expression is obviously ‘to clear the air with someone’, and I was thinking, how can I link this in with Australia? And it made me think, okay, weather in Australia, you know, air, weather, weather in Australia, and then I thought about how I could relate this to pop culture in Australia, and instantly it made me think of the song by Crowded House, a band from Melbourne, Australia, called Four Seasons in one day.

So, I wonder if you guys know this song. “Four seasons in one day”. It’s a good song. It’s a good song, which is about the temperamental weather of Melbourne. So, if you’ve ever been to Melbourne, you’ll know why this song is called ‘Four Seasons in One Day’.

So, I decided to sing that at the start their, guys. (I) had to blow the cobwebs off my vocal chords as it’s been quite a long time since I’ve sung, and it’s… I haven’t actually sung in front of anyone in a very, very long time, although, I guess, I’m kind of singing in front of people, not really. It’s sort of like it’s online and I don’t have to deal with people watching me so it’s fine. But yeah hopefully, it didn’t sound too much like someone killing a cat.

Check out the song ‘Four Seasons in One Day’ by a Crowded House online, and its covers as well by other Australian artists like Paul Kelly and Angus Stone. These are all really good artists. If you guys like folk music or soft rock kind of music, I think you’ll really like these artists. So, check them out on YouTube. Anyway, guys.

This is the Aussie English Podcast, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. It is brought to you by the Aussie English Classroom. This is my online classroom where I upload all of the small courses that I do, I have pronunciation courses in there, I do videos, all sorts of bonus content for anyone serious about learning English. So, if you would like to take your English to the next level and complete today’s expression episode as a mini course, as well as all the previous episodes as many courses, go to theAussieEnglishClassroom.com and you can try it for a dollar for your first month.

Guys, this is a really, really good deal. There are no other deals online that I know of where you can try something, you can get access to everything for one dollar for 30 days. Guys, you’ll normally have trials for maybe a week, maybe a couple of days, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing this for 30 days, but that’s how confident I am that you guys will really enjoy this material, and I want to be able to give you the chance that if it isn’t for you, you don’t get slugged with a bill before you decide to leave. So, you got plenty of time to check it out. So, go have a look.

Anyway guys, let’s get into the Aussie joke for today. So, the Aussie joke, again, I wanted to make this related to weather. The Aussie joke is:

What’s a queen’s favourite kind of precipitation? What’s a queen’s favourite kind of precipitation? Are you ready for this? “Reign”, “Reign”.

You might see the spelling to get this. It’s a pun, okay? “Reign”. So, it’s spelled here, R-E-I-G-N. “Reign”, in this case, is a verb and it means: to hold royal office; to rule as a monarch. So, the Queen of England reigns over all of England.

But the joke here, the pun, is with the word “rain”, R-A-I-N, which is the condensed moisture of the atmosphere falling visibly in separate drops. So, any time you walk outside there’s a storm and you get wet from drops falling from the sky, it’s because of rain.

Alright, so today’s expression is ‘to clear the air with someone’, ‘to clear the air with someone’. I hope you guys have heard this one before, though, if you haven’t, you’re going to enjoy this episode.

This was suggested by Lima. She’s tried suggesting this quite a few times in the Aussie English Classroom for the last few weeks. Each week students suggest their favourite expression for the week that they would like to be the one for this episode, and then everyone votes on it. Lima’s try a few times and she finally got it, she crushed it, she dominated this week and won by a milestone. Good job, Lima.

So, definitions of the words in the expression ‘to clear the air’ or ‘to clear the air with someone’.

If you clear something, it is that you remove any unwanted items or obstructions from somewhere or something. So, like, if I clear the table, it’s that I move everything off the table so it is clear. If I clear the room of people, it’s that I ask everyone to leave the room so that the room is clear. Okay? It is absent of all these unwanted things.

Now, ‘air’. I’m sure you guys know what ‘air’ is. I just inhaled air. ‘Air’ is the invisible gaseous substance surrounding everyone, right, surrounding the earth. It is a mixture of primarily oxygen and nitrogen. You breathe air. You breathe air. And a hot air balloon is full of hot air. Okay? ‘Air’.

So, let’s define the expression, and it has a few different meanings.

Literally, if you were to clear the air it is that you would remove any stale air in a room, right? So, if my bedroom here had been closed, the door’s closed, the window’s closed for days, and you open the door and walked in, it might smell stale, it doesn’t smell fresh. And so, in order to clear the air, you might open a window to let in fresh air. So, that’s the literal meaning, okay?

Figuratively though, ‘to clear the air with someone’ can mean two things.

Usually, it’s going to mean to diffuse an angry or tense situation by frank discussion. So, you’re going to have a problem with someone, you’ve had an argument with someone, and you’re going to have a frank discussion, so a discussion that’s kind of straight up, you’re not going to beat around the bush, and you want to sort out your problems so that you’re okay afterwards.

But the other meaning could be to remove any doubt from a situation, okay. So, if you’re unsure about a certain situation, clearing the air would be removing that doubt and making things clear, right? You would understand that situation better.

Alright, so let’s go through some examples, guys, some real-world examples of how I would use the expression to clear the air with someone or to just clear the air.

Alright, so example number one. Imagine you’re at work and there is a huge meeting with every single employee from every nook and cranny in the company. They have to show up, they have to attend this meeting. It’s been called by the CEO. Okay? And maybe it’s because there’s some new product that is about to be released to the masses, it’s about to be released to the public, you know, imagine it’s a new iPhone or a new iMac at Apple or something, and the CEO has called this meeting because there has been a lot of confusion about maybe the date of when this product is going to be released. So, he obviously wants to clear that problem up, he wants to remove all kinds of doubt and make sure that everyone understands the situation and the release date, and has a clear idea of what is going to happen. He calls this meeting so that he can clear the air. He wants to clear the air with everyone in the company so that they have a solid understanding about the upcoming product release, so that there is no doubt, no confusion. So, after the meeting, the air’s been cleared and things can move on smoothly. Clear the air.

Example number two. So, imagine you’ve had some kind of fight or disagreement with someone close to you, so a sibling, a parent. Maybe you fought over something like money, which can get pretty personal and can lead to big fights in families, right. So, maybe it’s inheritance from a family member who’s passed away, and you don’t know who is going to get it. One of you has gotten more money than the other one, and you’ve had a bit of a fight, and one of you has held a grudge against the other one for a while. So, if you decide to finally talk to the other person about your problems, to air your grievances, as in, make those grievances, those problems, those disagreements, known publicly with that person, and you want to resolve these issues, you’re clearing the air with that person. You’re clearing the air with your sibling, with your parent, you’re diffusing an angry or tense situation by chatting with them frankly about the problem. You’re clearing the air with your sibling or your parent. To clear the air.

Example Number three, okay. Now, imagine that you are a teenage girl at high school, okay? So, you’re a teenage girl at high school and you’ve got a lot of really close mates, but one of them is your best mate, and you and your best mate at school, one of your girlfriends, you guys have a crush on the same guy, on the same fellow in your class. So, you both are romantically interested, you have a crush on this boy. Okay? So, both of you want to ask him out on a date and when one of you goes to finally do it, it’s only you who has the courage to do it. The other one’s too chicken and chickens out and doesn’t have the courage to ask him out. So, you ask him out, Bob’s your uncle he says yes, and you end up grabbing a coffee at a local cafe. When your friend finds out about this and has a bit of a hissy fit, she gets angry, she gets upset, she rages at you, she gives you the silent treatment for a week or so. Okay? So, she gives you the silent treatment, she treats you with silence, meaning that she doesn’t talk to you, she refuses to reply to your messages, she doesn’t talk to you at school, online, wherever it is, she gives you the silent treatment. So, once you decide enough is enough and you get sick of the silent treatment from her and fighting with your friend, you diffuse the situation by having a frank discussion with her and clearing the air. You know, maybe you dump this boy and you say, it’s not worth it. I’d prefer to be with my friend and have that friendship sorted out again. So, once you’ve resolved things, you guys kiss and make up, and you become friends again, and your mate is really glad that you cleared the air, because no one likes drama, right? To clear the air with someone.

So, I hope now guys you understand the expression to clear the air with someone. Remember, literally, this could be opening the windows or doors in a room to let in fresh air when the air in the room is stale. But figuratively and more commonly, it’s going to be used to mean to diffuse an angry or tense situation by frank discussion with someone or to remove doubt from a situation. Okay?

So, as usual, let’s go through a little listen and repeat exercise here, guys, where you guys can practice your pronunciation, whether you want to sound like an Aussie, or whether you just want to work on your English pronunciation as it is, we’ll do that.

And then afterwards, I want to take you through the Aussie Fact for the day, where we’ll have a bit of a chat about climate and weather in Australia.

Alright, so listen and repeat exercise, guys. Listen and repeat after me and try and mimic my accent.

To

To clear

To clear the

To clear the air

To clear the air with

To clear the air with someone

I want to clear the air with her.

You want to clear the air with her.

She wants to clear the air with her.

He wants to clear the air with her.

We want to clear the air with her.

They want to clear the air with her.

It wants to clear the air with her.

Great job, guys. Remember, if you would like to work on the pronunciation and connected speech in this exercise, as well as all the previous exercises, sign up at theAussieEnglishClassroom.com, become a member, one month for a dollar, and you’ll get access to a video for today’s episode taking you through step by step all the key components of pronunciation, intonation, and connected speech in this episode, and all others, in order to improve your pronunciation. Because quite often when it comes to speaking English, you don’t necessarily have to have the most perfect pronunciation in the world to sound a lot more natural. Quite often, it’s related more to the intonation and to the connected speech, and to the emphasis that you put on certain words and where you place that emphasis.

Okay, so for example here, instead of saying ‘I want to clear the air with her’, you’ll notice that I’m saying ‘wanna’ instead of ‘want to’, and then at the end instead of saying ‘with her’, and really pronouncing that H, when I speak quickly that H disappears. That’s called H deletion. ‘With ‘er’, ‘with ‘er’. I want to clear the air with her. Okay?

So, we’ll go over those sorts of things in the Aussie English Classroom in these kinds of pronunciation videos and they will really help you level up your English. So, check it out. Anyway.

The Aussie English Fact for the day, guys. So, obviously, because the expression was about ‘air’, and then the introduction part of this episode was about Four Seasons in One Day and weather in Melbourne, in Australia, I thought that we could have a bit of a chat about climate and weather in Australia. Okay? The climate and the weather of Australia. So, let’s just get into it.

Australia is in the southern hemisphere, obviously. And so, the seasons in Australia are actually the opposite of the seasons in Europe and North America. So, when you guys… ‘you guys’, anyone who is in the northern hemisphere, when you guys in the northern hemisphere have summer, it’s winter in Australia, in the southern hemisphere. And when you have winter, it’s summer down here. Okay?

There are two main climatic zones in Australia. These are the Tropical Zone, which is north of the Tropic of Capricorn. So, it’s pretty much the top half of Australia. And then, we have the Temperate Zone, which is in the south of Australia, in the southern area of Australia, south of the Tropic of Capricorn.

So, the Tropical Zone covers a little less than the Temperate Zone, about 40% of Australia, and it has two seasons primarily, summer and winter. And summer is the wet season when there is a lot of rain in the north of Australia, and winter is the dry season when there isn’t very much rain in.

The Temperate Zone on the other hand has four seasons. Spring to summer, which is from October to March. These are the warmer and hotter seasons usually everywhere in Australia. Tropical in the north and warm to hot with mild nights in the south. This is the classic tourist season for the Northern Hemisphere visitors to Australia as well, because they want to escape winter and winter temperatures. So, they tend to come to Australia to get salt-soaked and it get sunburnt.

The highest maximum temperature ever recorded in Australia was 50.7 degrees Celsius, and this was at Oodnadatta, which is a town in South Australia, and it was on the second of January in 1960. So, almost 60 years ago, quite a while.

And a little anecdote here, I remember in 2009 we had a really, really severe heat wave in Victoria and there were some places in Victoria that had 12 consecutive days of temperatures above 43 degrees Celsius, and the maximum temperature was 48.8 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately, almost 400 people died, 374 people died, and 2,000 people were treated for heat-related effects. That was a really intense heat wave. I remember, I just couldn’t escape all these days in a row above 40 degrees.

Now, autumn to winter is between April to September in Australia, and these are the cooler months in Australia. In the northern and central parts of Australia, you’re going to have warm days and cool nights, but in the southern parts of Australia, you’re going to have cooler days with the occasional bit of rain, that’s rain, R-A-I-N, but still loads of sun.

Snow in Australia is completely confined to the mountainous regions of south eastern Australia, and this is the Great Dividing Range. So, you’re going to have this in south eastern New South Wales, north eastern Victoria, and in some places in Tasmania.

Temperatures in Australia can drop quite low during winter, at least quite low for us, and they can get to as low as -8 Celsius, which is the lowest ever recorded temperature in Yongala, which is also in South Australia. And this was recorded on the 20th of July in 1976. But as an anecdote, that sort of surprised me, because that was the coldest day ever, and Canberra this year had a few days of -7 degrees Celsius, at least, in the evening, not during the day, at night, right?

Anyway, no matter what kind of climate or whether you prefer, you’ll find somewhere in Australia that suits you, whether it’s hot summers and cold winters in places like Melbourne, Hobart, and Perth in the south of Australia, or hot summers with milder winters in places like Sydney and Brisbane, or really hot and humid climate pretty much all year round in places like Darwin, Cairns, and Townsville.

Anyway, guys, I hope you enjoy today’s episode I hope you have a great weekend, and I’ll chat to you soon. I’m about to head off to Batemans Bay for the weekend with my folks and Kel. So, it should be a good one. See you guys later.

Watch this podcast episode on YouTube!

AE 411 – Expression: When Push Comes to Shove

Trev!

Yes, J. B., boys, (I) had this email sent to me about 1,000 times this week. It’s a bunch of Collingwood jokes. I don’t know why people send them to me. But anyway, Sammy, we’ll just bang off a couple. You can stop sending them.

Sammy, what does a Collingwood supporter use as protection during sex?

What?

A bus shelter.

What do you call a 30-year-old woman in a Collingwood jumper?

What?

Nanna.

Let me see. Two Collingwood supporters in a car without any music. Who is driving?

So, this is the Aussie English podcast, guys, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone learning Australian English. If you want to speak like an Aussie or you just want to understand what we’re saying when we talk in our various accents, this is the podcast for you.

So, that scene at the start today was an interesting clip from a TV show called The Footy Show, and it was in 2004 that clip, where Trevor Marmalade is telling a few Collingwood jokes.

So, today’s episode is going to be themed around Australian Rules Footy or Australian Rules Football with special reference to a team called Collingwood, which is Australia’s most hated AFL footy team.

Anyway, in today’s episode, guys, we’re going to go through an Australian joke, an Aussie joke, as usual; we’ll learn the expression “When push comes to shove”; we’ll go through a little listen and repeat pronunciation exercise to help you learn your Australian accent, improve your English speaking; and then I’m going to tell you a little bit about the origins and history of the sport that is loved by everyone in the south east of Australia called Australian Rules Footy or the Australian Football League.

So, let’s go, guys, and let’s get started.

Aussie Joke:

So, the Aussie joke today is yet another Collingwood joke. This was my favourite from the ones that I could find online, and you heard about four there at the start. So, you’ll have to go back and check those out, but this joke is: imagine you’re trapped in a room with a crocodile, a tiger and a Collingwood fan. You have a gun with two bullets. What do you do? So, you’re in a room, you’re trapped, you’re stuck, there’s a crocodile there, a croc, there’s a tiger, you know, with the orange and black stripes, the cat, the big cat, a tiger, and there’s a Collingwood fan, so, someone who likes Collingwood, someone who barracks for Collingwood, and you have a gun with only two bullets. What do you do? And the answer: you shoot the Collingwood fan twice. So, you have two bullets, but despite there being a croc and a tiger, you shoot the Collingwood fan twice. So, that’s the joke, guys!

And, yeah Collingwood… for some reason everyone just seems to hate Collingwood and give Collingwood supporters a lot of hate. There are constant jokes about Collingwood supporters. So, I’m sharing that with you guys so that when you come to Australia and you get into Australian Rules Footy, you choose wisely when picking a team to support.

Expression:

So, today’s expression is “When push comes to shove”, “When push comes to shove”. I wonder if you guys have heard this expression before. And you might also have heard this as “If push comes to shove”. So, it can also be “if push comes to shove”. And you may have noticed that’s an if clause. So, if push comes to shove, I will blah… when push comes to shove, I will blah… So, those if clauses are ever present in English.

Alright. Before we get into the definition of the expression and how to use it, let’s go through and define the words within the expression, “When push comes to shove”.

Definitions:

So, the word “when”. The word “when”, I’m sure you guys know how to use this, means at or during the time that… at or during the time that something. So, he was there when I arrived at his house. He was there at the time that I arrived at his house. I’m sure you guys know how to use the word “when”.

“A push”. “A push” is the act of applying force to someone or something, so, obviously pushing someone or something, in order to move them away from you. In order to move something away, you’re pushing it, usually with your hands or your body. So, the man saved the child by pushing him out of the way of the oncoming bus.

“To come to something”, “to come to something”. This isn’t often used in this sort of figurative sense, where something has come to something, which sort of means to get to the point of, to reach something, to become something, in that figurative kind of sense. Usually, if you come to something, like say the beach, it’s that you have arrived at the beach, you’ve reached the beach, you’ve gotten to a destination, except this time the destination is figurative. It’s not a literal destination. Ok? “To come to something”, to get to the point of something, to reach a certain point figurative.

“A shove”. So, “a shove” is effectively the same thing as “a push” and when you look up the definition you will see it is a strong push. So, it’s effectively the same thing, but a little stronger. Maybe it’s a little more abrupt and a little more violent than say a standard push. So, you might push a table against a wall, and it’s something that you might do gently, you know? You slowly push the table against the wall. Whereas, if you shove the table against the wall, that would be the idea that it’s a little more violent, maybe it’s not as elegant, the way that you do this, it’s not as nice. So, “a shove” tends to be a strong push.

Expression Definition & Origin:

So, obviously this kind of means when a push becomes a shove, you know? When a push ends up being a shove, when it reaches a higher intensity and becomes a shove. So, it’s that idea of things increasing, ok? But the definition is when push comes to shove it is when someone must commit oneself to an action or a decision. So, if push comes to shove it is that the pressure is on. The situation is critical, it’s urgent, and it’s time for action, even if that situation is difficult. So, when push comes to shove, it’s usually when a situation becomes incredibly difficult and action is required.

So, I looked up the origin and I couldn’t really find a specific well-known origin for this expression, though it seems to date back to at least the early 1900s. There were some examples from 1930. Someone suggested this could have rugby origins, but there was no real evidence for this, though it would make sense, you know? When push comes to shove, if push comes to shove, you can imagine two guys playing rugby, they’re competing for the ball, they’re pushing each other, they’re shoving each other, and they’re trying to get that advantage, and when push comes to shove, they don’t shy away from it, they don’t give up, they keep going, you know, they keep trying hard, even in a difficult situation that calls for action.

Enjoying Aussie English?

Examples:

So, let’s go through the examples, guys! I’ve got three examples for you, as usual, of how I would use this expression. And the whole point of these examples, the reason I kind of flesh these out, meaning I get very descriptive, I talk quite a bit as opposed to just saying a single sentence, as example, is because I want to give you guys access to more vocab, more, you know, conversational English where I’m kind of just riffing. I’m just making this up on the spot. I have a few dot points here, but I want you to get access to more vocab, more English, and more slang. That’s why I flesh these out and to flesh something out means to make more elaborate, ok? To make it more complicated, more sophisticated.

1.

So, the first example here is that imagine you are a Collingwood fan, you’re mad about Collingwood, you absolutely love the team, ok? So, you’re a Collingwood fan, and Collingwood can also be referred to as “the Magpies”. So, every sort of football team in Australia will tend to have a mascot, and Collingwood is black and white and those are the colours of the magpie, which is an Australian bird that is also black and white. So, they’re often referred to as “The Magpies” or just “The Pies” or even “The Maggies”, ok? So, you go for Collingwood, you’re a fan, you’re a mad Pies fan, you’re mad Maggies fan. You’ve barracked for them your whole life. You’ve gone to every single match that you can remember being around, nearby, as a kid. You’ve always gone to every single match. You’re always wearing black and white. You’re wearing the scarf, you’re waving the flag, you’re eating a meat pie with some dead horse, some tomato sauce, on that meat pie, you’re drinking a beer at every match, and everyone gives you a hard time for barracking for Collingwood. So, every time you go to one of these games and you’re yelling out, you know, “Carn, The Pies!”, everyone’s giving you a hard time, but when push comes to shove, you don’t give in and you keep barracking for your team. You keep supporting The Pies. “Carn The Pies!”.

And as a side note there, guys, “Carn”, which is sort of a slang term, it’s an abbreviation of the words, “Come On”. So, you’ll often hear people screaming out “Come on!” when they’re supporting their team or their sport player, they’ll say “Come on! Come on!”, and that kind of evolves into “Carn, carn, carn The Pies! Carn The Pies”. It’s something you’ll hear in Australian English quite a bit. “Carn the…” and then the team. “Carn, The Pies”, “Carn The Maggies” or “Carn someone”, you know? “Carn, Lleyton Hewitt, carn!”. So, it’s a way of supporting them.

2.

Example number two. So, now imagine that you are a dishy, what is affectionately known as “a dish pig”. So, this is kind of a derogatory term that we use for someone who works in a restaurant cleaning dishes. The derogatory term would be “a dish pig”, someone who sits over the sink all evening cleaning dishes, and they can also be referred to as a “dishy”, which isn’t as rude. So, a dishy, you’re a dishy in a restaurant in Melbourne. It gets incredibly busy during summer, in the holiday season, you know? Sometimes the restaurant completely fills out and gets fully booked, and there’s not a single empty seat in the restaurant. You know, these nights are full on, you know? Lots of work, they require a lot of people to be working incredibly hard, but when push comes to shove, you work hard and you get the job done. If it gets busy, if loads of people show up, you can handle it. If push comes to shove, you work your arse off in the kitchen washing dishes and you get the job done.

3.

Example number three. Alright, so recently I interviewed my cousin Rhys, and that will come up eventually on the podcast when I get around to it, but I interviewed Rhys, and Rhys worked as a tradie, he worked as a brickie, someone who lays bricks, they’re a bricklayer. He did this for probably about six or seven years. So, he worked his arse off as an apprentice from the age of about 16 when he left school until the age of 23 or so, and he’d have to work incredibly long days working in the hot Aussie sun. He used to be incredibly tanned as a result of working outside constantly. He’d be busting a sweat and he’d be laying 300 to 400 bricks down every single day. So, he’d be building walls and other structures for people’s houses out of bricks every single day. Sometimes his boss would require that he and the rest of the workers complete a job incredibly quickly, but he, the boss, knew that he could count on Rhys and the team, because when push comes to shove, they are incredibly hard workers and they would get the job done. When the situation got difficult, they could all smash the job out, they could smash the work out, they could complete it. If push came to shove, Rhys would work his butt off, he’d put in the hard yakka, the hard work, and he would get it done. He would finish everything on time.

So, that’s the expression, guys. That is the expression “When push comes to shove”, which you may also hear as “If push comes to shove” from time to time, and remember it is when the pressure is on, when a situation becomes incredibly difficult, you can do it, you know? It calls for action, but you can succeed, you can work hard, and you can get it done. That is when push comes to shove.

So, as usual, guys, let’s go through a listen and repeat exercise where you can practice your pronunciation, whether in English, your accent, or even Australian English. If you want to copy my accent, this is your chance to do so. So, listen and repeat after me, guys!

Let’s go.

Listen & Repeat:

When
When push
When push comes
When push comes to
When push comes to shove x 5

When push comes to shove, I never give up
When push comes to shove, you never give up
When push comes to shove, he never gives up
When push comes to shove, she never gives up
When push comes to shove, we never give up
When push comes to shove, they never give up
When push comes to shove, it never gives up

Great job, guys! Great job. And remember, if you want access to all the bonus content for today’s episode with lessons covering things like phrasal verbs, the vocab, you’ll get listening comprehension quizzes to test your listening, and a whole bunch of other exercises to improve speaking and grammar, everything like that, if you want access to that, don’t forget to sign up to The Aussie English Classroom, guys! And remember, you can try it for one month, 30 days, for just a single dollar. You’ve got nothing to lose. So, if you enjoy studying and you’re trying to get your Australian English to the next level, sign up and give it a go. You’ve got nothing to lose, and when push comes to shove, I know that you guys can work hard!

Alright, guys. So, that is it for the episode today, but before we finish up, let’s go through an interesting Aussie fact.

Aussie Fact:

Ok, so, today I want to talk a little bit about the history of Australian Rules Footy or AFL, Australian Football League.

So, how did footy begin? In order to talk about how footy began, we have to talk about also how rugby began in Australia, because actually these two sports evolved from the same sport.

So, AFL stands for the Australian Football League, which plays the game of Australian Rules Footy or Australian Rules Football. We often just refer to this as “football” or as “footy”, you know, we put the “-y” sound on the end of “foot”, which is how we make a lot of slang words in Aussie English. So, it’s no surprise that we’ve done the same to the word “football”.

As a side note, “soccer” is the way in which Australians will refer to the sport known as “football” elsewhere in the world. So, in places like Europe and South America where they have rugby and they have soccer, they’ll actually refer to “soccer” as “football”, but we in Australia and I think Americans as well will refer to this as “soccer”, because “football” is a different sport for us, ok? So, that’s a little side note.

Alright, so how did football evolve in Australia? How did it begin? It actually dates back longer than the country of Australia, ok? So, it predates the Federation of Australia in 1901 when Australia became a nation. So, how crazy is that? Football and rugby, sports, are older than the country of Australia.

So, in 1857 a bloke named Tom Wills, one of the founders of Australian footy, returned to Australia after schooling in England where he was the football captain of Rugby School, and he was also a brilliant cricketer. So, he played both sports. Initially, he really advocated using the winter game of football, sort of a mix between football and rugby, at the time, in order to keep cricketers fit during the off-season. So, cricketers would play during summer. They would have an off-season during the winter, and in this period, they would play another sport, usually rugby, in order to stay fit. So, this is why football and cricket often played on the same fields and the Melbourne Cricket Ground, or MCG, as it’s known, is also where the AFL Grand Final is held every year. So, there you go, guys! Cricket and football are actually very, very closely tied together.

So, this was the same game that would eventually evolve into Rugby Union and later Rugby League in the 1900s, the same game that Australia Rules would evolve from.

So, the first Australian rugby team was formed in 1864 at Sydney University, which was actually several years after Australian Rules Footy had originally been started up and played by the people in Australia.

So, rugby is actually more popular around places like Sydney and New South Wales, in central eastern Australia, and in Queensland, in north eastern Australia, as this is where the game was played in these colonies, not Australia, not states, but colonies, at the time.

So, the game that would eventually be known affectionately as footy, Australian Rules Footy was founded and developed in the south eastern colony of Victoria in and around the city of Melbourne.

So, by the 1860s Melbourne, the city of Melbourne, was actually only 10 (20*) years old, and the colony of Victoria had only existed for about 10 years.

In 1865, the Waratah Rugby Club invited the Australian Rules Footy Club, The Carlton Footy Club, to play two matches, and one of those matches would be in rugby rules and the other in Australian Rules. So, I found this interesting, because it obviously showed that, at this time, there were a lot of teams playing rugby and footy, or what would eventually become rugby in footy, but they were sort of testing out these different rule sets and it was evolving at the time.

So, these games pooled about 3,000 to 4,000 spectators, which is funny, because the largest game that’s ever occurred had 121,000 spectators at it and that was in 1970. So, how crazy is that? There was actually 48 years ago that the largest-ever crowd to watch footy game occurred at the MCG.

Rugby made its way to Melbourne in 1888 when the Melbourne rugby union was formed in Victoria, but it never got the same attention as AFL. It never got embraced as much as AFL. And teams from Britain, New Zealand and other places around the Commonwealth, the English colonies, toured Australia, and so the game continued to evolve in that direction whilst AFL went in a different direction.

So, back to the story of AFL and footy. This new game of Aussie Rules Footy was devised by Wills so, this was the late 1850s, who had the help of his cousin H.C.A. Harrison as well as two other blokes called W.J. Hamersley and J.B. Thompson. So, these guys worked hard to develop this game, and the Melbourne Footy Club was formed on the 7th of August 1858, the year of the code’s first recorded match between Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar School. And these are two schools that I actually competed against in soccer when I was at high school. So, these schools are still around. That’s pretty crazy. Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar.

So, the game quickly took off and it blossomed and it began to evolve. The Geelong Footy Club was formed in 1859, and in 1866 an updated set of rules was put in place and competition started.

Originally, this association was known as the Victorian Football Association or VFA, and it was established in 1877 and quickly became Victoria’s major Aussie Rules Footy competition, but a power struggle ensued where stronger and weaker teams were competing and the stronger teams wanted more of the money from ticket sales, because they were bringing more of the crowds. So, eventually this led to the stronger teams leaving the VFA, the Victorian Football Association, including the teams Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, and South Melbourne. These guys seceded from the VFA and later invited Carlton and St Kilda to join them in the founding of a new competition, the Victorian Football League.

So, the Victorian Football League lasted 94 years and kept its name all the way from 1897, as the VFL, all the way to 1989. That was two years after I was born and then after this period it became the AFL once teams actually started occurring in other states around Australia, because obviously it had gotten bigger than Victoria.

So, a little bit about the history of the teams in the sport, guys. The Victorian Football League was established in 1896, as we said, in the following year the league’s first games were played among the foundation clubs: Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, St Kilda, and South Melbourne. In 1998, Richmond and University joined the competition, but after the 1914 season, the team University left the league.

In 1925, the team Footscray, now known as the Western Bulldogs, Hawthorn and North Melbourne also joined the VFL, and this line up of 12 clubs would remain unchanged until 1987, the year I was born, when the competition expanded to include the West Coast Eagles and the Brisbane Bears. So, obviously now we have a team from Perth and a team from Queensland.

So, by 1997 the competition comprised 16 clubs after Adelaide in 1991 joined, Fremantle joined in 1995, and then port Adelaide in 1997, and the foundation club Fitzroy merged with the Brisbane Bears to form the Brisbane Lions after 1996.

So, in 2011 the Gold Coast Suns joined the competition, followed by The Greater Western Sydney Giants, creating the 18 Team National Competition that we see today.

So, that was a lot of facts, guys, but I hope for anyone listening who is into AFL, it gives you a little bit of insight into the origin of the sport and why it’s played so heavily down in Victoria, and why it isn’t played as heavily and people aren’t as interested up in New South Wales and in Queensland.

So, it’s funny that that has continued on for well over 150 years now.

Anyway, guys! I hope you have a great week and I chat to you soon.

Peace out!

Intro Joke Explanations:

Trev!

Yes, J. B., boys, (I) had this email sent to me about 1,000 times this week. It’s a bunch of Collingwood jokes. I don’t know why people send them to me.

Eddie McGuire, the host of the TV show, is the President of the Collingwood Football Club

But anyway, Sammy, we’ll just bang off a couple. You can stop sending them.

Sammy, what does a Collingwood supporter use as protection during sex?

What?

A bus shelter.

This joke is playing with the word “protection”, which with regards to sex, refers to a condom, but a bus shelter is protection from the weather while you wait for the bus. The joke suggests that Collingwood supports like having sex in bus shelters out in public.

What do you call a 30-year-old woman in a Collingwood jumper?

What?

Nanna.

The joke here is that you’re calling a young woman “Nanna” suggesting she has grandchildren. This suggests she had kids at a young age, and those kids also had kids at a very young age. It suggests they are of very low socio-economic background, e.g. bogans.

Let me see. Two Collingwood supporters in a car without any music. Who is driving?

The policeman.

This joke suggests that if Collingwood supporters are in a car with no music it’s because they’ve been arrested by the police.

And finally, what do you say to a Collingwood supporter with a job?

I’ll have fries with that, thanks.

This joke suggests that if a Collingwood supporter has a job, you’ll say “I’ll have fries with that” because they are working at McDonald’s behind the register. This is the kind of job a 15-year-old would have while in high school, and it would be pretty shameful and embarrassing if an adult had it.

It’s a classic one, guys. That is probably the most famous scene from that film. Every Australian is going to know what you’re talking about if you say, “No cash! Here, no cash.” So, it’s a classic. I really recommend that you go and check out the movie Chopper, which is about a famous Australian convicted criminal and gang member known as Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read.

The movie was filmed in the year 2000, and it stars one of Australia’s most famous actors Eric Bana. So, you might know this guy from more recent Hollywood films, but he’s one of my favourite Australian actors. He’s is absolutely brilliant, and he nails, he absolutely nails the mannerisms and the way that Chopper speaks in this movie. So, check it out. Chopper. (It’s a) great movie about the Australian underworld in the 1980s and the 1990s in Melbourne.

Alright, guys. So, welcome to the Aussie English podcast, the number one Australian English podcast that is specifically designed to teach you Aussie English. Whether you want to understand Australian English, whether you want to speak like an Aussie English speaker, this podcast is the podcast for you. And it’s brought to you by The Aussie English classroom. This is the product that I sell guys that is the way in which I make a crust, I earn a living, and I can better help you improve your Aussie English when you sign up and give it a go. So, you get exercises learning phrasal verbs, learning Australian slang, listening comprehension, pronunciation, grammar, all that jazz, and you can try it for one dollar for your first month. It’s incredibly affordable after that. It’s about the cost of a coffee per week. So, get in there and give it a go, guys. The link will be in the transcript.

Aussie Joke:

Anyway, let’s get into today’s joke. So, today’s Australian joke, guys, is what is the difference between an Aussie wedding and an Aussie funeral? Okay? What’s the difference between an Aussie wedding and an Aussie funeral? The difference is that there’s one less drunk at the funeral. Do you get it? There’s one less drunk at the funeral, because he’s dead, or she’s dead. So, there’s one less person who is intoxicated with alcohol, who’s drunk, at the funeral, because unfortunately they’re in the casket, they’re in the coffin, they’re dead.

So, that is another example of Australian humour where we’re poking fun at ourselves, we’re taking the piss out of ourselves, we’re taking the Mickey out of ourselves, because we don’t take ourselves that seriously.

Anyway. I hope you like that joke. It’s a bit of a dad joke, but it’s funny nonetheless.

Today’s Expression:

So, today’s expression, todays expression is, “to throw your hat into the ring”, “to throw your hat into the ring.” This one was suggested by Jangsher. So, thank you Jangsher who suggested this in the Aussie English Virtual Classroom Facebook Group. You guys can jump in there. Every Monday we suggest new expressions and then everyone votes on those expressions. And the winner is the one that I do for the weekend.

Definitions:

So, let’s go through and define the words in the expression “to throw your hat into the ring”, “to throw your hat into the ring.

So, “to throw”, the verb “to throw”. I’m sure you guys will know the verb “to throw”. This is to launch something, this is to propel something, with force through the air by a movement with the arm and hand. So, you pick up a ball and you throw the ball. If you’re walking your dog on the beach, you might pick up a stick and throw the stick. If you’re an aborigine living out in the wild, hunting animals, you know, a few thousand years ago, you might throw a boomerang to try and catch a kangaroo or maybe some birds. Ok? So, that is the verb “to throw.”

Synonyms for this verb include: to chuck, to turf, and to piff. “To piff” is one that I used all the time as a kid in primary school. Piff the ball over here! Piff it over here, mate!

“A hat.” “A hat” is a piece of clothing that you wear on your head.

So, other synonyms for a hat include: a cap. You could have a wide brimmed hat, if it’s a really sunny day. If you’re feeling incredibly dapper, you’re wearing a suit, and you’re from the 1800s, you might be wearing a bolo hat. If you’re in the Outback of Australia, out in the bush, out in the sticks, you might be wearing an Akubra hat, an Akubra hat. Think Crocodile Dundee. He’s not an Akubra-style hat that he wears. And if you’re an American going to a baseball game, you might wear a baseball cap. That’s the one with the brim just at the front. I think you will have seen me in some videos wearing a baseball cap.

The word “into”. So, this is a particle, guys. This is a particle that means for something to move within something else. “Into”. So, you might put something into something else, you might move something into something else, shift something into something else, or throw something into something else. I threw the ball into the air. I threw a boomerang into the air. I picked my hat up and threw it into the air.

And the last word in the expression, guys, “to throw your hat into the ring”, is “a ring”, and “a ring” in this sense is a boxing ring where boxers fight, you know? So, like Muhammad Ali or Floyd Mayweather. They fight in a ring, in a boxing ring, which funnily enough isn’t actually the shape of a ring, which is a circle, it’s the shape of a square. So, a boxing ring is the shape of a square.

Expression Definition:

Let’s define the expression “to throw your hat into the ring.” So, “to throw your hat into the ring” means to make or take up a challenge. So, to demonstrate one’s willingness to join an enterprise. Ok? So, a challenge. To take part in something, to get involved in something. That’s the meaning of “to throw your hat into the ring.” So, if I throw my hat into the ring, I want to be involved. I want to take part. Or I might throw my hat into the ring because I want to take up this challenge. I’m demonstrating my willingness to take part.

Expression Origin:

The origin of this expression is somewhat interesting. It originates from the early 1800s. So, 1800s. And, “ring” here refers to the circular space that appears within a crowd of onlookers, so a crowd of people looking on at this ring within the crowd, which may have occurred because two people are boxing, or two people are fighting. So, if they didn’t have “a ring”, per se, a boxing ring, and two people wanted to fight they wanted to box, if they’re doing this, often a crowd is obviously going to form around these two people. You might see this at high schools when two kids fight. A ring of onlookers, a ring of, you know, a crowd of people, will form around these two people. So, that’s probably where, funnily enough, that’s probably where the word “ring” comes from to me boxing ring, because before we had proper boxing rings it would have just been in a crowd.

Anyway. The origin of the expression “to throw your hat into this ring”, into the ring that forms in a crowd, it originated when you would have people who wanted to fight, and in order to sort of put themselves forward instead of trying to shout over the hubbub of the crowd, instead of trying to scream out, you know, “I’m interested. I want to fight. Let me box.”, they would take their hat off, and then throw it into the ring in the crowd. So, they would throw their hat into the ring to say that they wanted to fight. And more recently obviously, it’s become a way of expressing that you want to take up a challenge or get involved. Ok?

So, before we get into the examples, I wanted to mention a similar expression, “to throw in the towel” or “to throw the towel in”. This originates from boxing as well, and literally, it is for your coach to throw your towel, as the boxer, to throw your towel into the ring to say that you give up. You’ve been defeated. He’s said, “Look, you’re not winning. You’re getting smashed. There’s no chance that you’re going to win. You’re just going to get injured. You’re going to get knocked out.” So, he throws in the towel to show that it’s over. We give up. Our corner of the boxing match throws in the towel and we submit.

Figuratively though, “to throw in the towel” is to give up, to surrender, to submit, to concede defeat. So, I might use that, figuratively, if I’m at work, and I decide I’m giving up for the day. I want to go home. I throw in the towel and I go home.

So, don’t get it confused with that, guys. Ok?

Examples:

Alright, some examples. Some examples of how to use the expression “to throw your hat into the ring.

1.

So, number one. Example number one. Imagine you’re having a meeting at work where there’re tons of people, there’s a heap of people, who are being asked to volunteer to complete a certain task at work. However, completing this task is going to require that you and whoever else puts their hand up, whoever else volunteers to complete this task, you guys are going to have to stay late on a Friday night and continue with the hard Yakka at work instead of going out with your mates. Anyway. You decide you’re keen to do this. You decide you’ll put your hand up, you’ll take part, you’ll get involved, you’ll take up the challenge, so you throw your hat into the ring. Ok? You throw your hat into the ring and you say I’ll do it.

2.

Example number two. Imagine you’re a plumber. And a cool kind of derogatory but funny slang term for plumber in Australia is “a dunny diver”, “a dunny diver”. So, someone who dives into dunnies, and “dunny” is a slang term for toilet. So, you’re a plumber, you’re a dunny diver, and you and your plumber mates are at work. You show up for the day. You show up to work. Your boss comes up to you guys and says, “Look, guys, we’ve got a really dodgy job today. It’s going to be a bad one. (It’s a) really smelly, messy job, but someone’s going to have to do it.” So, something’s gone awry in someone’s toilet, someone’s loo, someone’s dunny. Something’s gone bad, something’s gone wrong. And no one’s keen to put their hand up first, but you decide you’re not a wuss. You’ll throw your hat in the ring and take up this challenge. So, “I’ll do it, mate. It’s all good. I’ll throw my hat in the ring. I’ll take up this challenge.”

3.

Example number three. So, you hanging out with your mates at a barbie. Ok? This time you’re a girl, you’re a woman, you’re a sheila, and all your mates are sheilas. Ok? so, “sheila” is a slang term for woman. So, you’re hanging out with your sheila mates at a barbie, a barbecue, having some snags, having a chat, maybe you’re drinking some champagne, you know, kicking back with your girl mates, your girlfriends. And you decide that you want to start a business selling lippy. And “lippy” is a slang term for lipstick. The stuff that you put on your lips, if you’re a woman, before you go out. So, you want to sell lippy, maybe other cosmetics and make-up products as well, and you ask your girlfriends if anyone is willing to chuck their hat in the ring, to throw their hat in the ring, and get involved. “Any of you sheilas want to get involved with this business plan selling lippy that I have?” One of the chicks says, “Yep! It’s totally up my alley. I absolutely love make-up. I love lippy. I love business. So, I’ll throw my hat in the ring and I’ll take part in this venture. I’ll take up this challenge of starting this business with you.

So, those are the examples, guys. I hope you get by now the expression, “to throw your hat in the ring”, which means to make or take up a challenge, to demonstrate one’s willingness to join an enterprise or start a venture, or to take part in something, or to get involved in something. So, it’s all pretty much the same thing. Ok? To throw your hat in the ring.

So, as usual, let’s go through and listen and repeat exercise, guys. Find somewhere quiet, find somewhere away from other people, if you don’t like practicing in front of other people, and practice your pronunciation as an Aussie just like me. So, listen and repeat after me guys and let’s smash this out. Let’s do this. Ok? Let’s do it.

Listen & Repeat:

I threw my hat into the ring.

You threw your hat into the ring.

He threw his hat into the ring.

She threw her hat into the ring.

We threw our hats into the ring.

They threw their hats into the ring.

It threw its hat into the ring.

Good job, guys. Good job.

So, that expression is pretty cool, guys. And I’m going to go over some stuff in today’s Aussie English Classroom with all the exercises and bonus content for this stuff, where we talk about the connected speech in “I threw my hat into the ring.” So, I would actually say that as, “I threw my hat into the ring”, instead of, “I threw my hat into the ring”. “I threw my hat into the ring.” So, there’s some cool stuff going on there, guys. If you want to learn how to break that down and how to pronounce all of that stuff like a native Aussie English speaker, make sure you join up to the Aussie English Classroom. It’s one dollar for your first month. Give it a go.

Aussie Fact:

Anyway, before finishing up, guys, let’s do the Aussie English Fact, although today, it’s going to be a series of facts, a whole bunch of facts, a heap of facts all about Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read. So, about Chopper, the guy that we were talking about at the start of this episode. So, that was who the film Chopper was made about.

So, this guy is quite an interesting character. He was born on the 12th of November in 1954, and fortunately or unfortunately, he died in 2013. So, he grew up in Melbourne, in the suburbs of Collingwood, Thomastown, Fitzroy, and Preston, and unfortunately, he had a really horrible childhood, which isn’t a surprise with a lot of violent criminals. He was severely bullied at school and he got into hundreds of fights. He was sexually molested as a child, and he was placed in foster care. His parents were pretty full on. One of them was a soldier from the Korean War, and I think his mother was incredibly religious, a Christian. And he was put into foster care, moved around quite a lot, and then later in his teens, he was put into several mental institutions, and he even claimed that he received electroshock therapy, which is where they put electric probes on your head and shock your brain. So, (a) pretty full on childhood.

As a young adult, he became an accomplished street fighter. So, he became really good at fighting with his hands in the street, maybe kicking people as well. And, he was the leader of the Surrey Road Gang. So, he became the leader of a gang of other youths. He began his career robbing drug dealers. So, people who sell drugs. And these drug dealers were based in massage parlours in the Prahan area of Melbourne, and I assume they were probably also brothels where prostitutes work.

Crazily, this is a crazy fact too, he only spent 13 months of his time outside of jail between the ages of 20 and 38. So, less than one month of every year between the ages of 20 and 38 he spent outside of jail. And he was convicted for things like armed robbery, firearm offenses, assault, arson, he even impersonated a police officer, and he kidnapped a few people as well.

He started prison wars with his gang the notorious Overcoat Gang. He had the tops of both of his ears cut off by fellow inmates. And this was done on purpose because he wanted to leave H Division, which was the division that he was kept in in Pentridge Prison. And he wanted to do this to avoid being ambushed by other inmates, because of this gang war. So, he actually had another inmate, a friend of his, or at least someone he knew, cut the top of both of his ears off in order to be temporarily removed from that part of the prison in order to save himself, I guess.

A few other crazy facts. He got interviewed on 60 Minutes, a news show in Australia, and he played Russian Roulette with himself. That is where you put one bullet in a revolver, you spin the chamber, and then you put it to your head and pull the trigger. So, he actually did that in an interview on TV. And what’s worse is that he did the same thing again and ask the reporter if she wanted to play. She said no, but she still pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger. Fortunately, there was no bullet in the gun chamber and she survived.

Despite claiming to have killed 19 people in his criminal career, and attempting to murder a further 11 people, he was actually never convicted of murder. He never went to jail for the crime of murder. How crazy is that?

And he had his last interview two weeks before his death from liver cancer in 2013. Funnily enough, again, on 60 Minutes. So, he got interviewed two weeks before his death on there in which he confessed to committing four of these apparent 19 murders. So, he at least says he was a little more honest there and openly talks about four murders.

So, I hope you enjoy this episode, guys. I know it was a long one, but I hope it’s full of great content, great vocab for you to learn obviously about violent crime in this case, but interesting stuff nonetheless. And I will see you in the next episode. Catch you later, guys.

AE 358 – Story Time: Was This The Worst Date Ever?

What’s going on? (I) decided to go for a walk today. It’s a pretty warm up… well, pretty warm, it’s about 16 degrees. So, it’s not too bad, but it’s not exactly a scolder. It’s not that hot. Sorry, I’m just crossing the road so it might be a bit loud.

But, Petinka and Chris and the crew, everyone else, who’ve been interested in transcribing a bunch of episodes, asked if I could make some more. So, I thought I would start with something a little bit different. I thought I would start with sort of Walking With Pete “Story Time” style episode now, where, I guess, I can talk to you guys while I’m walking and tell you a story about, I guess, my past or something interesting that I’ve experienced. Again, (it’s) just another excuse to give you new vocab and (so you can) hear me talk about different things.

So, I thought today, I would tell you about the worst date that I’d ever been on. So, the worst date I’ve ever been on. So, until recently, I had used Tinder, I had used… What’s the other one called? Happn, is another app that you can use for dating where it was a nice way of sort of meeting complete strangers who weren’t in your circle of friends from work or from the gym you go to etc.. So, that’s why I kind of like those apps.

And before that, I had on occasion given my number to women that I’d met out and about, whether I was at a cafe or I just… I don’t know, (I) saw someone somewhere and decided this person looks interesting and fun so I’ll give them my number and ask if they want to get coffee.

So, I used to live in Newport. Newport is a suburb in the southwest of Geelong. Geelong?! In the southwest of Melbourne*. And I decided one day… we were at a cafe and there was this beautiful waitress serving us, and we had a bit of a connection. She was getting my jokes and laughing at stuff I was saying, and like one of those girls who just. Is really friendly straight off the bat. So, she wasn’t very reserved, (she) didn’t ignore us, (she) was keen to sort of joke around and chat.

So, I was there with a friend, and by the end of the time that we were having coffee and probably lunch I decided I’m going to give this girl my number. I’m going to, you know, give her my number and say if you came for coffee sometime let me know and let’s go grab coffee.

So, I ended up giving this girl my number. And, you know, you get really nervous before you leave. You know what you want to do. And so, I was sort of half shaking, but (I) ended up saying, you know, here’s my number. My name’s Pete. If you want to catch up some time let me know. And so, that happened, which was good. She ended up calling me and we arranged a time to meet up, to catch up and go out and have dinner in Newport.

And I remember thinking… She said to me when we were organising the time, she said, can we make sure it’s between 7:00 and 9:00 o’clock. And I remember thinking, that’s a bit weird. Normally, you kind of have, I guess, no real upper limit. And it wasn’t that big a deal, because I had to go out to a gig in the evening anyway. I think from 10:00 o’clock I was going to a concert, a Karnivool concert. And Karnivool’s a band that I love here in Australia from Perth, from Western Australia. A really good progressive rock band. So, it didn’t bother me too much.

So, we met up. I was waiting outside and she walked up to this pizza restaurant in Newport where we were going to go have dinner. And straight away I could see I was going to follow up with the date, because she’s a… she was a smoker, and I’m not really a massive fan of cigarettes, of smoking, ’cause I… when I was younger both of my grandparents passed away from really horrible cancers as a result of smoking. And so, partially because I just am not fond of the smell of it, and also because of, you know, the events of having close relatives who I love die from cancer, I just always hated smokers and smoking. So, instantly, I was like yeah OK. We can hang out and chat but I don’t think, you know, that this is going to go anywhere. Partly also, because I don’t really want to force people to change for me, right? Like, you never really want to start a new relationship under the premise or under the sort of assumptions that someone’s going to change for you.

So, we sit down she sits down there in front of the restaurant with me, ’cause she said she was going to explain why we had to do it between 7:00 and 9:00, because I remember I was asking her I said well what’s the… what’s the deal? How come you’ve got to be gone so early? And so, we sat down and she’s like I’ve got narcolepsy. And I said narcolepsy that’s something I’ve seen in, you know, one of these Adam Sandler movies or something where it’s a disease or a… I don’t think… I think it’s a neurological disorder, right, where you fall asleep at random times because of potential external stimuli or for, you know, absolutely no reason at all.

And apparently, she was telling me that she had I think it was called cataplexy narcolepsy where it’s caused by things that she’s afraid of. So, when she gets scared of something or has something that she’s thinking about that she finds repulsive or gross, she passes out for half an hour, and falls asleep on the spot. And so, she wanted to tell me that, because she was like, I take medication during the day so that I stay awake and I come off it at night so I can obviously go to sleep. So, obviously, while she’s working she doesn’t want to pass out randomly while she’s serving customers so she takes this medication this, whatever the drug is, in order to stay awake. But then in the evenings, as she’s coming off the medication she’s more likely to fall asleep as a result of having narcolepsy.

So, we were sitting there and I was like well what is it caused by? And she told me that it was just anything she has a phobia of. And I was like, alright. And she told me not to call the ambulance. She said if this happens I have to tell you now so you don’t call the ambulance. If it happens, because I’m not sick, well, I’m not, you know, going to die or anything. I have this…, I guess, it’s a disease. But, it’s not fatal or anything. I just fall asleep and then I wake up again, and we can keep going along with our night. So I was like a bit taken aback. And I’d never met anyone with narcolepsy. So, I thought it was like a… one of those things that you know no one has that you’ve heard of once because of a movie.

So, we have dinner. We order a pizza. We sit down. She sits next to me on the right side. I think we’re on like a bench somewhere. So, we were sitting next to one another having pizza, and as it just comes out, instantly, she… I think she was asking me about what pets that I used to have. Did I like any animals? And all that sort of stuff. And so, I was like, yeah, back in the day I used to have, you know, dogs and cats and everything. So, that was, you know, the standard thing. But then, I mentioned that I also had reptiles, and that I had lizards, and that I currently own a two-metre-long black headed python. So, a black hated python, they’re are native species of snake in Australia. And that freaked her out.

I didn’t even really realise at the time. She was just saying, oh gross! That’s really disgusting. And I thought, alright, someone who doesn’t like snakes. We’ll just change the topic. And, as I was trying to change the topic she kept coming back to it, and kept saying, why do you have a snake? Oh that’s so gross. And then all of a sudden, it was really weird. It looked like she was having a bit of a stroke. I remember she was sort of lolling to one side, turned away from me, and wasn’t looking at me. And I was a bit sort of like, what is going on? Because I’d actually sort of forgotten about what she was telling me. And I asked if she was okay, and she turned around slowly looked at me and said I’m fine. And then passed out in my lap. Literally, stone-cold. Asleep. Snoring. She had drool coming out of her mouth. She was just dead to the world. Out of it. And in my lap, and I was like. OK.

So, I kind of didn’t know what to do with that situation at the time. It was interesting. I was sitting there. I’d met this girl about half an hour prior to this, and (I) was just eating dinner, and then all of a sudden, she was asleep on my lap in this restaurant.

So, I sat there for a good 10 minutes, just, you know, trying to be as natural as possible, trying not to be awkward, and was just sort of, you know, trying to comfort her, I guess. Although, she was completely unconscious, and (I) was just hoping, oh my gosh! I hope she wakes up. I hope she wakes soon. This is really awkward. And I had to… I was… (I) kept looking at the watch, because it ended up… I think we waited half an hour and she hadn’t woken up. So, I was kind of like, OK. Is she just going to stay asleep? Is there a point where I should worry and call the ambulance? Or, you know, like, ’cause even though she had said that I was like, oh… How seriously do I take that? So, in the end I sort of got impatient and I just walked up to the people working at the restaurant, ’cause by then they’d seen this and seen that she’d fallen asleep, and I said to them, I said, well she’s got narcolepsy. I said that she was my girlfriend, actually, because, you know, it would have been a little weird if I’d said it was a first date. And so, I said, yeah, my girlfriend’s got narcolepsy. I need you to help me put her in the car and take her… You know, I’ll take her home and put her to bed. ‘Cause at the time, I was like, well, what the hell!? I can’t just stay in this restaurant? What the hell am I going to do? I guess, I have to take it back to my house and put her on the couch or something, and just wait for her to wake up before I go out to this gig.

So, I remember picking her up, the guy, one of the waiters working at the restaurant opens the door to the restaurant, (he) lets me out. He comes to my… the car that I had all the time, and opens the door, and the whole time, while I’m carrying this unconscious woman through the street, the whole time I remember just thinking, Please, God, don’t wake up! Please, God, do not wake up and, you know, start screaming. What are you doing? Where are you taking me? Any of that. It was just such an awkward situation.

So, I end up putting her in the car, putting the seatbelt on her, driving back to mine, which was only about five minutes up the road. I had to pull her out of the car, climb up these stairs, as it was… we… my house was on the second floor. So, I had to climb up there. And then, I put on the couch. And at the moment I put her down on the couch she woke up. And I was like, oh God here we go. But, strangely enough, the first thing that she said was just, do you have some chocolate? That was… I shit you not. That was the first concern of hers after waking up and being in a stranger’s house, do you have any chocolate?

So, that was definitely the strangest date that I have ever had. I’ve never had anything surpass that. That has been the… definitely the weirdest date I ever went on. And needless to say, you know, I took care of her, got home that night, but we didn’t catch up again, unfortunately.

But yeah. Far out. It was definitely an incredibly interesting event. Something that I’ll never forget, I don’t think, until the day I die.

So, all you people out there with narcolepsy, I feel for you. I feel for you. Especially, in the dating world. It’s not easy.

So, I hope you enjoy this Story Time Walking With Pete episode, guys. I’ll try and do some more in the future. Let me know what you think and I’ll chat to you soon. Peace out.

AE 336 – WWP: How To Learn A Language With Podcasts

Just out for a walk and I thought I would talk to you guys, I thought I would do one of these Walking With Pete episodes about how to best learn a language via podcasts, by using podcasts.

So, what is my advice? How would I go about learning a language via podcasts?

Obviously, if you’re listening to this podcast you are trying to learn English, for one.

And obviously, for two, for the second point you have a high level of English.

If you cannot understand me speaking as quickly as I’m speaking, using the language that I’m using, then you guys definitely have an advanced level in English.

So, firstly, pat on the back for that, because it’s not easy to get to any advanced level in any language that isn’t your native language.

So, you should definitely be proud of the fact that this is where you’re at, guys.

Good stuff. But the basic point I want to make, or the basic thing that I want to talk about, is podcasts.

What would I do with regards to learning a language if I was obviously at the upper intermediate, at the advanced level, in a language?

So, first and foremost obviously, I want to find a podcast that I enjoy listening to.

So, if you guys don’t enjoy listening to Aussie English I don’t know what you’re doing here.

You guys should definitely go and find a podcast that resonates with you, that you find riveting, that you find interesting, that you find fun to listen to, and continue to use that resource.

So, that’s the first thing. Try and find a podcast that you enjoy. It’s not hard work.

It’s something that you can do effortlessly, that you enjoy doing. That’s the first step.

And I’m sure you guys have probably experienced this in other areas in your own languages and in your own life where if you try and force yourself to read a book that you don’t like, to watch a TV show you don’t like, to watch a movie you don’t like, aside from the fact that it’s hard work you don’t absorb anywhere near as much from that thing than if you were to be watching a TV show or a movie or reading a book that you do enjoy.

So, it’s kind of a cumulative effect. It’s almost like the… in both directions too.

Both positive and negative. The more you enjoy something, the more of it you can consume, and thus the more you’re going to advance.

So, especially, in terms of language learning, especially, in terms of picking a podcast, if you enjoy the podcast and it’s not hard work you’ll obviously listen to more, and you’ll obviously be taking… you’ll be taking note, you’ll be focused in, you’ll be concentrating.

You’ll be a lot more attentive to what I’m saying in the podcast, or to what anyone is saying in any other podcast.

1. Find something you enjoy

So that’s the first one. Be interested in the resources that you’re using.

So, find a resource that you enjoy, that is easy work, because then going through it and utilising it, consuming it, using it, is going to be effortless.

You’ll just keep doing it day in day out, and you’ll keep building, you’ll keep gaining your knowledge, you’ll keep improving a lot faster than if you were using something that was really difficult, that was hard work, that you didn’t enjoy.

So, that was… that’s number one. Point number one. Find something you enjoy.

2. Find a podcast at your level (or just above)

Point number two. Match that thing to your level. This is one that is kind of difficult to do at times and it takes a bit of practice to get used to it and a bit of use. You got to go out there and try these things. Use these things.

And see… work out what your level is. It can’t… It’s not always intuitive when you first start.

You don’t necessarily know where you stand, and sometimes we’re not the best judges of our expertise, at least, or our advancement in these sorts of areas.

So, point number two is trying to find something at your level.

And in fact beyond that, you should be trying to find something above your level, but not so far out of… away from your level that it’s too difficult.

So, the thing shouldn’t be too easy and it shouldn’t be moderately easy.

So, I imagine it… you could find a resource that was at your exact level in English.

You want something that is ahead of you, but enough… ahead of you enough that it’s going to keep you moving forward.

So, I guess a good analogy for this is the donkey or the mule with the carrot in front of the donkey’s head.

Right? You probably know that analogy where in order to get the cart to move forward the farmer or the man who’s on the cart with the donkey in front of him pulling the cart, he has a carrot on a stick.

You know suspended from a stick on a string.

This carrot’s sitting there like a fishing rod with the hook.

Instead of a hook that’s got a carrot.

And so, he uses that to put it in front of a donkey to get the donkey to move forward.

So, if it goes too far in front of the donkey, the donkey is going to say, “Well, screw this. That’s too hard. I’m not going to bother with that. It’s way too far out of my reach. Achieving this goal is too far. It’s too hard. It’s too difficult. So, I’m not even going to try.”

That’s what happens with the language learning when you pick a resource, whatever that resource is, that’s too difficult. If it’s too hard, it’s really too easy to say, “I can’t do this.”

And also, it’s obviously going to chip away at your motivation.

If it’s a lot more difficult than the level that you’re at, so it’s not paired well with where you are at, whether or not you know it it’s going to affect your motivation, I’d imagine.

Or at least it’s really really going to test your discipline to see whether or not you can get through it.

The other side of it is that if the carrots too close the donkey eats it doesn’t move.

So, in that analogy if the carrot’s too close to the donkey and he eats it that’s the same as you using resources that are too easy.

You’re absorbing them like crazy, but it’s not pushing you forward.

You’re not advancing as a result of absorbing those resources, of using those resources.

So, this would be like me trying to advance my English by watching Play School, which is a TV show for children here in Australia.

You know where they’ll do, “One and two is three and three and four is seven.”

You know they’ll have those sorts of things on TV. My language… my English language is probably not going to take leaps and bounds, you know, it’s not going to move forward, I’m not going to advance quickly if the resource that I’m trying to use in order to achieve that is really not accurately set.

So, point number two is find something that is at the right difficulty level.

And this difficulty level pretty much goes for anything that you’re trying to improve in in life needs to be ahead of you.

It should be hard, but it shouldn’t be too hard that you can… you want to give up.

So that’s point number two.

3. Use a podcast with transcripts

Point number three, with regards to language learning and podcasts, is getting access to transcripts.

Now why is this important?

It’s one thing to listen to a podcast and understand what’s going on.

And I think even for native speakers who are listening to a podcast we’re not absorbing all the words all the time.

So, we actually still miss quite a bit of what’s said.

So, I think this is even more the case if English isn’t your first language it’s your second language, you’re going to miss a lot of the nuances, a lot of the smaller words, as well as some of the bigger words that you don’t know, if you don’t have access to a transcript.

So, a transcript is the written words, as what is said.

So, it’s the… it’s literally the words on a page of what’s been said.

The podcast, the resource, has been transcribed.

And so you’ve written down the words that are being said.

And this… It’s so important to have access to a transcript.

And this is part of the reason in Aussie English that with all of the podcast episodes I always try and make sure that there is a free transcript even if you’re not a member, because I still know how important it is, and how much I still want you guys to have access to that resource.

Some of them I obviously don’t.

The longer ones that are over an hour long, ’cause it’s just a lot of work.

But for these sorts of ones there’s always a transcript.

Transcripts are really good because they’re filters.

You can’t hide from what you don’t know, from what you don’t understand, if you’re reading through a transcript.

It’s so much more apparent, if you have the words in front of you when you’re listening to the podcast, as to which words you would have otherwise missed.

So, the really small words that might get absorbed or disappear in contractions that you won’t necessarily misunderstand what’s being said, but you didn’t gain 100 percent understanding of what was going on grammatically or at the level of the language, and then therefore be able to go away and implement it when you speak, and when you write, and when you listen, you know, to other people who end up making the same kinds of sentences.

So, it’s really important to be able to see those words and be able to have two things going on at the same time.

Listening and reading.

And then also, obviously, it’s really good because of all the words that you’re not going to understand, of all the words that you are going to find or hear for the very first time.

And this is so easy for advanced, high… advanced intermediates to advanced learners of a language to skip over.

It’s not the end of the world if every now and then a big word or a noun some kind of adjective, one of those rare words gets used, and we don’t understand it.

We can often piece together what’s going on.

We can often make out the sense, the context.

We know what’s being said more or less. And so, it’s not the end of the world.

But, you’re not going to learn what that word was, that you missed 30 seconds ago on a podcast was, unless you have access to a transcript and you can read while you listen.

Go through. Note all the words you don’t understand.

Note all the expressions that you might not understand.

And then look them up. Learn them. Write them on the transcript.

And then listen to the episode again. So, that’s point number three.

Find a podcast that has a transcript. So, that you can read and you can listen.

And a lot less gets by, a lot less goes through, and you don’t absorb it from the podcast episode.

And this is something I always noticed I do whenever I listen to Français Authentique or any of these other podcasts for Portuguese or Spanish.

If I don’t have a transcript, I may understand what’s going on, but I miss a lot of the words.

4. Use the transcripts as a filter to find new vocab

Point number four is to use the transcripts as a filter.

So, use them as a filter. Almost a reverse filter. What do I mean by this?

A filter is something that used, well, to sift through something, to filter it…

This is one of those hard verbs for me to define.

But, in the sense of using a transcript as a filter, what I mean is that you’re using it to filter all the words that you didn’t know out of the podcast.

So, you’re using the transcript to find those words, to take note of those words, to look those words up, find out what they mean.

Write them then on the transcript, and then listen, listen, listen, repeat, repeat, repeat that podcast multiple times now that you have looked up all of that vocab and understand that vocab, until you can hear all of those words now and understand what they are when you listen.

I think this is one of the biggest things with learning a language with podcasts, aside from the points already mentioned, is having that transcript and are using it to build your vocabulary.

Using it to filter out all of those words that you otherwise didn’t know prior to that podcast, that you didn’t know before that podcast, and learning them.

And this is going to be invaluable if you’re trying to advance quickly with learning a language.

And obviously, by using a podcast, by doing it on your own.

So, you don’t have other English speakers around. And it can be transferred to any resource.

If you’re watching a movie, if you’re watching a TV show, if you’re listening to an audio book, if you’re consuming anything in English as long as you get access to the written words as well as the audio that is going to advance you a lot quicker than if you had only one or the other.

So, I think those are the main four points. Find a podcast that you enjoy, number one.

Number two, make sure it is at the right level.

And it should be just a little bit in front of you.

You should position the carrot in front of the donkey that’s pulling the cart at the right distance to get that donkey to move forward.

So, it needs to be a little bit difficult so that you are constantly then running into new vocab, new things.

Number three is finding a podcast with a transcript.

And this ties in with number two and why it’s so important to have one that is just ahead of you, because then you’re going to have access to a lot more new vocabulary, and you’re going to be…

You’re going to be filling in your vocab holes.

So, you’re going to be finding all of these words that you don’t understand, all of these aspects of grammar that you might not commonly hear or use.

And then you’re going to add them to your repertoire.

And then, obviously, Number four it’s using it as a filter.

It’s taking note of all of these things that you didn’t know and learning them.

Putting in active effort to look them up, to learn them, write them down on the transcript, and then listening to that podcast episode again, again, again.

Once… you’ll find too, you’re going to find that once you’ve looked these words up, and once you know what they mean, your memory is going to be triggered really easily and really quickly when you hear them in that podcast episode.

So, you don’t need to necessarily learn them by heart, but just having looked them up once or twice, and reading over the transcript a few times with the episode playing at the same time, and then after that only listening to the episode, you’re going to notice you’ll remember this vocab, and it’s going to stick with you. It’s going to stay with you and you’re going to advance incredibly quickly.

So, those are the four points that I think you should take note of.

When picking a podcast make sure that it’s interesting, it’s just ahead of your level, there’s a transcript, and you use that transcript to find your holes in vocabulary, to find the things you don’t already know, and then to learn them.

So, I hope that helps guys. I hope you enjoy this episode.

I hope that Aussie English’s being a useful resource for you guys.

I hope that the transcripts are really useful.

And I hope that if you’re not already using them like this that you start doing it tomorrow, and that you start noticing gains, that you start noticing improvements really quickly.

So, with that I’ll leave you to it guys.

Someone doing a burnout in the background there on Lygon street off in the distance.

I hope you have a good day or a good night, a good morning, and I’ll see you later.

AE 328 – Expression: The Tip Of The Iceberg

Obviously, by the sound of my voice you can probably hear that I am better.

I don’t have the cold anymore.

I’m sure if you go back and listen to the last expression episode you will be able to tell pretty quickly that I was pretty tired, under the weather, and a little bit down in the dumps, meaning that I was a little bit depressed as a result of having the cold, having the flu, that I had last week.

So, hopefully now you can hear that I’m a little bit peppier.

I’ve got a little bit more oomph in my step, a little bit more spring in my step.

So, we’re lunchtime, Saturday today, and I just gave a private lesson. I had a coffee.

So, I’m also a little caffeinated. I’ve had a bit of a coffee.

I’m, you know, pepped up and ready to go. Few announcements this week.

I have relabelled the Aussie English Support Pack, or what was formerly known as the Aussie English Supporter Pack as the Aussie English Classroom.

So, let me know what you think of that guys.

I’m unsure if it’s going to be a little confusing with the Aussie English Virtual Classroom, which is the Facebook group, but the Aussie English Classroom is where you get all of this bonus material for the expression episodes every week.

So, you get these weekly lessons where you get heaps of exercises, bonus MP3s, the detailed PDF Transcript sent to your email, as well as getting access to that on the website so that you can practice your English, your Australian English, your grammar, spelling, vocab, expanding your vocab, pronunciation, phrasal verbs, all of that stuff in your own time and at your own leisure.

So, remember, you can sign up for that. It’s 1 buck, it’s one dollar for the first month.

So, that’s four lessons that you get for just one dollar.

Sign up, give it a go, and let me know what you think, guys.

Give me feedback. I’m always trying to improve these things.

And, my ultimate goal with the Aussie English Classroom is to equip you guys with extra lessons that will take you further in your English faster so that you can learn anywhere in the world, at any time, on your own, and advance as quickly as possible.

So, I’m always interested in any feedback that you guys have for me.

And, come and chat to the members who are working in the Aussie Classroom who are signed up to it.

Come and chat to them in the Aussie English Virtual Classroom on Facebook.

Aside from that, I’ve been working on the lessons that I release during the week, the smaller ones that I’ve been doing on a daily basis.

Chris suggested that I set this up as a transcription kind of exercise for you guys to work on in the Facebook group.

So, if you want to practice your Aussie English, especially with these shorter episodes, I’m now opening it up as a Google doc, a Google document, that you can all work on together in the Aussie English Virtual Classroom.

At the moment, it’s open to everyone so that you can give it a go and play with it.

Although this might become just for the Aussie English Classroom members who’ve signed up in the future, because I’m going to also go through and correct what it is that you guys do, what it is that you achieve, in these sort of transcriptions.

And so, Chris is from Brazil.

He was the one who suggested this and helped me organise it, and is the head of the group doing these transcriptions for the podcast.

Aside from that too, we’ve got the Video Library up for the Aussie English Classroom members.

So, when you sign up you get access to the online Video Library.

This is where I upload all the bonus videos that I have and videos from live classes.

So, you get access to now hundreds of videos that aren’t on YouTube.

And, if you enjoy the classes that I give on Thursdays, I put these classes up, the whole thing on YouTube, for everyone to see, but then I divide the classes up into the questions that are asked and into the different sections that I cover in the actual class itself.

So, I divide them up into a heap of different videos.

They’re a lot shorter and easier for you to search through and skip to the more interesting bits and look at the questions that are asked and more easily navigate the videos.

Anyway, so that’s for members as well. I’ve talked too much.

Let’s just dive straight into this expression episode today guys, and the expression is going to be “the tip of the iceberg”.

“The tip of the iceberg”.

And, sometimes you’re going to hear this as “it’s just the tip of the ice” or “that’s just the tip of the iceberg” or “this is just the tip of the iceberg”.

So, as usual, let’s go through and define the words in the expression “the tip of the iceberg” or “just the tip of the iceberg”.

“Just”, “just” is only. This is only the tip of the iceberg. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

So, it is emphasising the fact that it is only the tip. It’s only the tip. It’s just the tip.

“The tip” of something, “a tip” or “the tip” of something.

“The tip” of something is the point or pointed edge or end of something.

So, imagine that you have a knife, if you poke the end of it you’re poking the tip of the knife.

If you touch the end of your finger, you’re touching the tip of your finger.

If you climb Mount Everest, all the way up to the top of Mt. Everest, you’re on the tip of Mt. Everest, you’re on the top of Mt. Everest, you’re on the very top pointed edge of that mountain.

So, “the tip” of something is the pointed end of something.

“An iceberg”. “An iceberg” is a large floating mass of ice that has detached from, say, a glacier or an ice sheet in Antarctica, for example, and has been carried out to sea.

So, it’s a large floating mass of ice from a glacier or an ice sheet.

And, you could think of the thing that sunk the Titanic ship.

That was a really large iceberg.

And so, you can get these in the Northern Hemisphere.

You can get them also in the Southern Hemisphere near Antarctica.

That is “an iceberg”. So, to define the expression itself.

When you’re talking about something just being “the tip of the iceberg”, it’s talking about something only hinting at or suggesting a much larger or more complex issue or problem.

So, for example, imagine that literally icebergs have 80 percent of their mass, maybe even more, below the water.

If you can only just see the tip of the iceberg, if you can just see the tip, it’s (that) you can just see the top above the surface of the water.

The other 80 percent of the iceberg is below the surface of the water.

So, you can only see the tip, the top pointed part of the iceberg.

But we can use this metaphorically or figuratively to mean that we can only just see or we’re only just referring to a small part of a much larger and much more complicated issue or problem.

So, let’s go through some examples as usual, guys.

Examples:

1.

So, example number one.

Imagine that you go over to a lady’s house and this lady you know really likes cats.

You know, she could be obsessed with cats.

We call these ladies “old cat ladies” or “cat ladies”.

You know, the kind of women who really really like cats and tend to have a lot of them as pets.

So, you go to this lady’s house.

You see one or two of the cats in front of the house, and you say when you knock on the door, you know. “Oh that’s no big deal. You’ve just got one or two cats. You’re not really a cat lady.”

She could say to you, “Ah… that’s just the tip of the iceberg. That is just the tip of the iceberg. These one or two cats in front of the house are just the tip of the iceberg.”

And then, she opens the door and you see another 10 cats in the house.

So, those first two cats were just the tip of the iceberg in that they were just the start of the much larger issue, I guess you could say, that was the fact that she had another 10 cats inside.

So, those first two were the small part of a much larger thing, which was that 12 cats in total.

2.

Example number two. Imagine you visit a guy in jail and you ask him what he’s in for, so, why is he in jail.

Maybe he tells you that he robbed a bank and you could say, “Oh, ok, just that? That’s all you did?”.

And he might reply, “Well, actually, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I also committed grand theft auto, meaning I stole cars, larceny, extortion, blackmail.”.

Maybe he even murdered someone, to throw that in there for good measure.

So, he could say, “Well, robbing the bank was the tip of the iceberg. It was just the beginning of all the other crimes that I had also committed.”

So, that the robbery of the bank was the tip of the iceberg, and the rest of the iceberg, metaphorically or figuratively in this sense, is grand theft auto, larceny, extortion, blackmail, and murder.

So, it’s everything else then.

3.

Example number three.

Maybe you have picked up a book in a store that you’re going to read.

It looks pretty big. It turns out to be Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire.

So, you read the first book of this really really big series.

As we all know it’s pretty long.

And, maybe you just thought that it was going to be a lot harder to read, that it was going to be a lot longer, and you say to a friend, “I’ve read this book. It’s no biggie. It was incredibly quick. I finished it. What was the issue? Why was this such a big deal?”

And, he might say, “Ah, mate, there’s another five or six books. That was just the first one. That first book was just the tip of the iceberg. The first book was just the tip of the iceberg.”

There’s still all these other books that in the metaphorical or figurative sense are the rest of the iceberg hiding below the surface of the water.

So, that’s it guys. Hopefully by now you understand what “just the tip of the iceberg” means.

It is only a hint or a suggestion of a much larger or more complex issue or problem or area, thing, whatever it is.

So, as usual, let’s dive in and do a listen and repeat exercise here, guys, where we can practice our pronunciation.

And then, I’ll go through some of the pronunciation and connected speech tips from the sentences that we use in the lesson and repeat exercise.

So, I’m just going to say this phrase guys.

Listen and repeat after me and practice your pronunciation.

Let’s go.

Listen & Repeat:

Just the tip.
Just the tip.
Just the tip of the.
Just the tip of the.
Just the tip of the iceberg.
Just the tip of the iceberg.
It’s just the tip of the iceberg.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Good job guys. Good job.

Notice when you go back there that I said that more naturally as I would as a native English speaker.

I didn’t pronounce all the letters, and a lot of them were kind of pushed together.

We’ll go through two aspects of the pronunciation and connected speech used in that phrase right now.

The first aspect or the first tip that I want to draw your attention to is the fact that when we say the word “of”, if it’s followed by a consonant sounds, so “of the”, you’ll notice that “the” starts with “th-“.

If of the word is followed by a consonant we drop the F, and we just say “OH” or “AH”.

So, that’s why you hear “tip AH the iceberg” instead of “tip OF the iceberg”.

It’s just the tip AH the iceberg. Tip AH the iceberg. Just the tip AH the iceberg.

Remember, if you want bonus exercises and bonus material for these expression episodes so that you can learn even more thoroughly, go even deeper, and advance even more quickly in English, make sure that you sign up to the Aussie English Classroom at www.TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com.

Sign up a dollar for your first month. You can unsubscribe at any time.

It literally just costs you a single dollar for the first four lessons. So, give it a go.

And if you have any suggestions, if you have any feedback, send me an email or send me a message.

I want to make this the best resource online for learning English, the best resource for learning Aussie English, and in order to do that I need your feedback.

So, with that guys, I hope you have an absolutely awesome weekend.

And, for everyone looking forward to the next episode of Game of Thrones that’s coming out on Monday.

AE 307 – Expression:

To Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

If it’s your first time, thank you so much for joining me. Sit back, relax.

I know you guys are going to love the podcast.

Everything Australian here, everything Australian slang, expressions, and you just get to listen to me talking like a real Australian using the English that’s spoken Down Under.

So, this is Aussie English, The Aussie English Podcast, the number one podcast teaching you Australian English, whether you want to understand it and that’s your only objective, or whether you want to learn how to sound like an Aussie.

That is what the podcast is all about.

And that’s what my Facebook page and YouTube channel and website is all about helping you guys to do, to achieve, to allow you to learn to understand Australian English, and to allow you to learn to speak like an Aussie, whether it’s using slang, expressions or our accent.

Anyway, let’s dive into it guys. How has your week been? What you’ve been up to?

I hope you guys have been really productive, working hard, you know, getting things done, kicking goals as we say down under in Australia.

“Kicking goals” like in the sport of football.

Obviously, if you kick a goal you’re succeeding, you’re doing well.

So, if you’re kicking goals in life you’re doing well in life, you’re doing well at life.

You can use both prepositions there. Doing well in life. Doing well at life.

So, what have I been up to this week? I’ve been trying to do a bit of writing up at the Museum.

So, I’ve finished the PhD. One of my markers has gotten back to my supervisor.

So, he has returned the submission of my PhD to my supervisor and to the university, and allowed him to look at the marks.

But I can’t see them yet. I have to wait, I think, until I get the second reviewer’s marks back.

So, I have to reviewers for my thesis. Two people who review my thesis.

They go over my thesis, they go through my thesis, and they mark it.

So, they give it a score. Well, not specifically a score, but they’ll go through it and criticise it.

So, they’ll find points that should be improved, things that could be said better.

Maybe they’ll critique or criticise the methods that I used to achieve the results that I got, and then how I interpreted those.

So, they go through it or they go over it, and they return a list of things that I have to adhere to, of things that I have to address.

So, I have to go through and address the comments that they give me.

I have to say, “OK. I agree with you here. I’ve made the changes as you’ve asked.”, or I have to go through and justify why I may disagree with the reviewer and say, “Eh, actually, mate. I don’t agree with you here. I think you’ve misinterpreted this, and I think I’m correct because X, Y, Z.”

So, I’ve been having to wait about two months now to get that all back.

I think, hopefully, I’ll get the next reviewer back within the next month.

And yeah, apart from that, I’ve been writing up a paper this is my first chapter in my thesis.

I’ve been writing that up and trying to get that submitted to a journal, which is an organisation that publishes scientific literature so that other people can then use what I’ve done.

The science that I’ve done.

After it’s been peer reviewed it’s been reviewed by other scientists in the field, my peers.

After it’s been peer reviewed and correctly vetted, I guess you would say.

So that it’s been criticised by independent and unbiased scientists who know the field and agree that the science is good enough to be published.

Anyway, that’s been my week. Apart from that, obviously, I’ve been working on Aussie English.

So, I’ve been creating more content for you guys.

I’ve put up a few videos on YouTube that you may or may not have seen.

One of these was Why Do Australians Eat Kangaroo?.

And another one was What Beer Do Aussies Drink Down Under?.

So, I’ve been taking some of these questions that you guys give me in the Live Classes.

I chop up the live class videos after I have uploaded those onto YouTube.

So, I take out smaller portions.

Interesting questions or interesting expressions and slang terms that I go over, define, and then use in these episodes.

And I’m turning those into smaller videos that I can then put on YouTube for you guys to better consume, for you guys to better watch, to more easily watch, and better learn from.

So, I hope you guys are enjoying those. I think it’s a really good use of my time.

So, I’m finding that the Live Classes, I’m really enjoying them for one.

And I think the turnout is getting better and better each week.

So, “the turnout” being the number of people who turn out, who come to, the Live Classes on Facebook.

And so, for those of you who don’t know, every Thursday at 7:00 p.m. Melbourne time, I believe that it is UTC +10 hours time.

So, every Thursday at 7:00 p.m. Melbourne time, Eastern Australian Time, I get on Facebook and I get on and do a live class on slang, on expressions, on Australia, on questions that you guys might ask.

It normally lasts between 30 minutes and an hour.

But the basic thing is to be there and chat with you guys close to one-on-one, I guess, you know, like, it’s me “on” all of you guys.

But it’s me they’re trying to share the language.

And the good thing is after each class I can download the video.

I can download the movie, the Live Class from Facebook. I can then edit it.

I can add in pictures. I can put subtitles in for different expressions and words that I use.

And then, I can upload it onto YouTube as well as the podcast and allow you guys to listen to it.

And then, obviously, as I was just saying, I can chop up these episodes and I can then put mini pieces of these episodes into their own videos and upload those onto YouTube as well as the podcast.

And so, this gets me on to one more thing that I want to mention before we get into the expression today guys.

I had a private lesson today with Juan one of my students and he put me on to a book, he introduced me to a book, called The 10x Rule or The x10 Rule.

I’m not sure which way around it is.

The basic idea being you should do 10x as much as you think you need to do to achieve or to succeed as best you can.

And so, I’m going to try and apply this to the podcast.

And by doing that or in doing that, I’m going to try and do an episode per day.

So, I’m going to try and put something on YouTube, and I’m going to try and put something on the podcast every day.

I know that you guys might freak out. You might think, “Oh my gosh, Pete, we can’t handle that much content!”.

The good news is it’s not going to be an Expression Episode like this every single day.

But, I’m going to use small little pieces, little like definitions of expressions, of slang terms, or the questions that I’ve answered in the Live Classes and recycle them, reuse them, reimplement the material from them, and turn them into videos and smaller podcast episodes for you guys to better consume, for you guys to better utilise, for you guys to stay more engaged and have new content to work with every single day.

We’ll see how I go, guys. I’m going to do my best to adhere to this.

I’m going to try and do one every single day.

If you guys have questions that you want me to answer too in the Live Class episodes make sure that you get them to me before Thursday each week.

I will try and post something on Facebook one or two days in advance, or one or two days before the Live Class asking for questions.

Make sure that you get on there.

You can message me them at any time, but get me a question so that I can answer them in the class, and then I can turn those into videos and publicly thank you, especially, if I obviously have your name, and then put them up on the podcast and on YouTube.

Anyway, guys, that has been a massive intro. I’m sorry it’s lasted so long.

There were a few things to talk about.

But let’s get into today’s expression, which is going to be “to bite off more than you can chew”. “To bite off more than you can chew”.

This is a common expression in all places that speak English throughout the world.

I hear this all the time.

As usual guys, let’s dive in and just talk about the different words used in the expression, “to bite off more than you can chew”.

We’ll define those words, and then we’ll get into the expression itself.

Let’s go.

So, “to bite”. “To bite”.

“To bite” is to grab something with your mouth or with your teeth.

It’s to place your mouth over something or on something and to close upon it.

So, if I put my hand in my mouth and I close my mouth, I close my teeth on my hand.

I’m biting my hand.

If you pull a dog’s tail and the dog turns around and latches onto you, it places its mouth over you somewhere, and closes its mouth.

It’s biting you. “To bite”.

If you bite something “off”, we turn it into a phrase or verb here.

We add the word “off” to show that something has been removed.

So, if I take my book “off” my table it means I remove the book from the table.

So, for example, if I had a chocolate bar and I put it in my mouth and I bite, and then I pull the rest of the chocolate bar that isn’t in my mouth away from my mouth.

I’ve just bitten off a piece of the chocolate bar.

I’ve bitten off a chunk of the chocolate bar. I’ve bitten off a mouthful.

If a dog were to bite my hand and it took my finger off my hand.

So, when it bit down it removed one of my fingers.

I could say that the dog has bitten off one of my fingers.

The dog has bitten off my finger.

So, remember guys, with phrasal verbs like this that make literal sense you can substitute in the verb depending on the action you’re trying to describe.

So, how that thing is happening: biting, chewing, chomping. You can change the verb.

And we add on the preposition “off”, in this case, to make it obvious that something has been bitten and then removed.

The word “can”. “Can” is to be able to do something. To be physically able to do it.

So, if you bite off more than you “can” chew that is that you have bitten off more than you are able to chew, than is possible, than you are able to do.

The word “chew” is to move your jaw up and down, to render pieces of food in your mouth smaller.

So, to create the food that you have bitten, that you have bitten off, that you are placing in your mouth, if you’re chewing it you’re moving your jaw up and down, your teeth are crushing the food and making it easier to swallow.

Making it more palatable. Making it easier to ingest, to swallow, “to chew”.

So, as usual guys, let’s get into the definition of the expression itself.

The expression “to bite off more than you can chew”, “to bite off more than you can chew”.

It can have that literal meaning of you’ve taken such a big bite of something, it’s so big, that you can’t chew it.

So, imagine that you put a whole apple in your mouth and you bit it in half, but that mouthful that you’ve taken is so big you can’t actually chew.

You can’t chew it up and then swallow it. You’ve literally bitten off more than you can chew.

You’ve bitten off more than you are able to chew.

But we can also talk about this in the figurative sense when you try to do something that is too big or is too difficult to do.

It’s impossible to accomplish because it’s just too much.

So, as usual guys, let’s go through some examples to explain how we would use this both literally and figuratively.

Examples:

1.

So, imagine that you are a lion in Africa.

You’re a lion on the Serengeti Plains and you and your pride of lions–we call the group of lions that live together “a pride”–you and the pride of lions are hunting down a wildebeest.

So, you’ve chased down a wildebeest. You’ve hunted it down.

You’ve caught that wildebeest. You’ve taken it to the ground.

One of the lions has applied that bite to the neck to kill the wildebeest.

And then, when you guys start eating the well the beast one of you bites off a massive chunk of leg and it’s too big to chew.

You can’t fit it all in your mouth. It’s way way way too big.

You could literally say that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.

So, you’ve bitten off so much that you can’t chew and you can’t swallow it.

It’s something that is too big. It’s too difficult to do, in the figurative sense.

But in the literal sense, you actually can’t chew it because it’s so big.

2.

Example number two.

Imagine that you are working and your boss has asked you if you think you can handle several projects at the same time.

So, he’s asked you to deliver some goods. He’s asked you to finish writing a document.

He’s asked you to also go over and work with another teammate.

And if at first you say, “Yeah, that’s fine. Too easy! I can do that.”.

But then later on it turns out that it’s actually way too much work.

You can’t manage it, you can’t handle it, and you can’t complete all of that work.

Then we can say, figuratively, that by agreeing to doing all of that work you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.

So, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew because you have taken all of this work, you’ve agreed to it, you’ve said, “It’s okay. I can do it.”, but then, figuratively, it’s more than you can chew because you can’t do it, you can’t complete the tasks.

It’s too big, it’s too difficult to do. You’ve bitten off more than you can chew.

3.

Example number three. Imagine, okay, that you’re a fighter.

You’re some kind of boxer, you’re some kind of martial artist.

Maybe you do MMA, which is Mixed Martial Arts.

So, you fight professionally, and a fight has been organised between you and an opponent.

So, you think that this opponent’s going to be relatively easy to beat, that you’ve “got this in the bag”, as we often say, as in it’s going to be easy.

It’s going to be simple to carry out, to finish. It turns out though that your opponent is a lot more skilled than you originally thought.

So, maybe you prejudged the situation and you thought, “This guy’s smaller than me. I’ve got this in the bag. It’s going to be easy to beat him.”.

But then it turns out that he’s incredibly skilled, and despite his small size, despite his small stature, he’s incredibly quick.

And it becomes obvious to you when you’re fighting him in the ring, in the Octagon if it’s MMA, that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.

So, bitten off more than you can chew because the task is incredibly difficult.

It’s too big and you can’t complete it.

So, figuratively here, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, meaning that you have challenged this fighter, and you’ve wanted to beat him, but it turns out that he is a lot more difficult to beat than you first thought.

You’ve bitten off more than you can chew.

So, as usual guys, let’s go through a listen and repeat exercise here where you guys get to practice your pronunciation.

Practice your English pronunciation by copying me and trying to say things exactly as I say them.

Let’s go.

Listen & Repeat:

To bite off.
To bite off.
To bite off.
More than.
More than.
More than.
To bite off more than.
To bite off more than.
To bite off more than.
To bite off more than you can chew.
To bite off more than you can chew.
To bite off more than you can chew.
To bite off more than you can chew.

So, let’s put this in the Past Tense, guys. We’ll say, “I bit off more than I could chew”.

Let’s practice these phrases.

This might take a bit of practice, guys, because they’re relatively large sentences, but I thought I would give it a go.

I know you guys have got this, and I know by doing this that you guys won’t have bitten off more than you can chew.

Practice, practice, practice. Let’s go.

Listen & Repeat:

I bit off more than I could chew.
You bit off more than you could chew.
He bit off more than he could chew.
She bit off more than she could chew.
We bit off more than we could chew.
They bit off more than they could chew.
It bit off more than it could chew.

Good job guys. Good job.

So, pronunciation and connected speech wise guys, in this one, you’re going to notice the T-flap.

And that is where we turn T’s, that “Teh” sound into more of a D sound by flapping, by hitting, our tongue against the roof of our mouth.

So, we do this in the example of “bit off” or “bite off”. “Bite off”, “bit off”.

You’re going to hear instead of “bite off” and “bit off” that we say “bite off”, “bit off”, that’s T-flap where we make the tea into a D sound.

This occurs because there’s a vowel on either side of the T.

So, you’ve got an “-i-e, o-” and an “-i-, o-” are on either side of the T in “bite off” and “bit tough”.

So, when there’s a vowel the side of a T in English we turn the tee into a D sound or into the T flap.

Listen & Repeat:

I bit off.
You bit off.
He bit off.
She bit off.
We bit off.
They bit off.
It bit off.

Good stuff guys. Good stuff.

There’s also an interesting aspect with regards to “could” and “chew” when you place these together.

The D and the CH join. And it just sounds like “ch”. So instead of saying, “could chew”, you say, “coul-_chew”, “coul-_chew”, “coul-_chew”.

We’ll go through that in the exercises in the bonus material for this episode today.

So, before we finish, as usual guys, make sure that you sign up and become a member on the Aussie English website at www.TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com.

If you sign up and be a member you can try it for a dollar.

And this is where you get access to the bonus content specifically designed to teach you English even faster.

So, I’ve specifically designed exercises for you guys.

All of the bonus content for this Expression Episode and for the previous Expression Episodes where I take you through phrasal verbs that are used.

I give you substitution exercises to practice using this stuff like natives.

We go through the pronunciation and connected speech stuff more thoroughly.

And we also go over grammar and slang that is used in each episode.

You can also support Aussie English by signing up to be a patron on the website Patreon.

You can sign up here and you can donate anything from one dollar a month upwards.

You can donate more. It’s totally up to you guys.

But this is for those people who want to support the podcast, who want to help me keep making this material to help you guys learn English, to help you guys learn Australian English.

So, if you guys want to be involved more directly, if you guys want to be able to support me directly, and allow me to support myself, to keep doing this stuff, then go to the Patreon on Page and sign up to become a patron today.

AE 270: A Behind The Scenes Look At The Aussie English Supporter Pack

G’day guys.

Welcome to this little behind the scenes episode of Aussie English where I want to show you a little bit about the Aussie English Supporter Pack, and what I’ve tried to do recently.

So, as you may or may not know I have an online paid subscription service to try and help English learners get a lot more out of the podcast than just listening or just reading the transcript by itself.

So when you sign up for the Aussie English Supporter Pack you get access to all of this bonus content for each podcast episode so every podcast episode that comes out you get the transcript and the MP3 at the very least, and then with weekly episodes, like the expression episodes, you get a whole heap of other exercises.

So I’ll give you a little look at the moment of what we have here from the more recent expression episode.

So we had “to scrape the barrel”.

We’ll go to that. So this is the front page. The front sort of face of the website.

I’m sure a lot of you know how this works. So there’s obviously the title at the top.

I have this little section here that only members can see where they can click here to download the PDF and MP3s and everything for the episode.

And then for those of you who aren’t subscribed but still want access to the MP3 and want to be able to read the transcript that’s on the web page away from the computer, all you have to do for that is obviously click and then enter your email, and it gets emailed to you.

So that’s, you know, the standard episode.

And you can also play it here using the SoundCloud recorder whilst you scroll and read.

So, for members though, they have access to all of the bonus content.

So, we’ll click on that and have a little look.

When you click on it it sends you through to my Google Drive where you guys who are members get access to all the exercise MP3s here as well as the main MP3 for the episode, and then at the PDF, and any other documents that might come with the episode as well.

So you’d click up here on the little arrow to download it. And it just shoots on down.

Once it’s downloaded successfully you just have to unzip it.

So click the little button. Open it up. Jump inside the folder. There are all your files. Click the PDF to open it up.

So here we go. There’s the PDF.

So, I colour code things in the text itself to try and make reading it a little easier, and finding some of these things a little easier in the text.

So, the black is the lesson vocab, the more difficult words, verbs, phrases that I wanted to find and will use later on in the exercises quite often.

Blue text is idioms. Green text is the lesson expression itself.

So in this case to scrape the barrel or to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

That comes up in green. And then red text is the Aussie slang that I use.

And so as we scroll through this lesson you’ll see the green text come up there, and then you’ll see blue text every now and then wherever I’ve used idioms.

Let’s see if we can find one. Well red text. Red text there is the slang.

Blue text here, “to have a crush on someone”, so different kinds of expressions.

And so you get the whole transcript like that where you can read through and focus on things… here… a phrasal verb here “to ask out”.

The more difficult stuff you can take note of it, and then when you go back to look over the transcript you can find it a little easier.

So at the bottom here I want to show you the different exercises. So to start with I have a glossary.

A glossary with all of those words that were in bold as well as in colour defined.

So, for instance, “to get off”, as in to get off a period of time.

Here I’ve got the phrase itself, the definition of the phrase, to leave work without permission.

Oh sorry, to leave work with permission as scheduled.

And then I’ve got an example that I’ve just written, as in, come up with myself, and then I have the actual line out of the text that was where this, phrasal verb in this case, was used.

And so I do this for every one of those bold words or phrases.

So you’ll see there’s a whole lot of them I go through to the end of that. So that’s that.

And then I have writing practice where you guys can test your memory after listening or after reading the glossary and see if you remember the definition of a lot of these different words.

You can also go through the text and try and work it out as you’re reading.

So you can keep referring back to the table and trying to fill in the definition of these words or phrases and any synonyms that you might find.

So anything like adjectives, quite often I try to repeat different ways of saying the same thing, and trying to use synonyms, ’cause that’s a very important part of any language.

Then I have a listening comprehension exercise.

So in this one it’s designed for you to listen to the episode again and answer these questions as you go through.

So, for instance, how many days off do we get in Australia for the long weekend that I mention and which days were they.

I talk about if I’m religious or not is Australia as religious as America.

So these are all things I talk about in the episode, and they’re in this order.

And it’s designed so you have to pay attention and then write out the answers.

And then at the end you say that you just have to scroll to the very end of the PDF to get to the answers section to see the correct answer.

So that’s the listening comprehension section.

Then we have a substitution exercise, and I tend to do phrasal verbs at the moment for the substitution exercises.

So, here you’ll see that I introduce it. I say which phrasal verb it’s going to be.

In this case it is put off. I tell you the synonyms for to put off.

So the other words that can be used that mean the same thing as to put off, in this case, to postpone, to delay, to reschedule.

I talk about whether or not you can split the phrasal verb.

So whether you can separate it. So you can put something off.

In this case or you can put off something.

And then I also talk about, obviously, whether or not they always need to be split using pronouns.

So, there’s obviously… phrasal verbs are tricky and that’s why trying to phrase a verb every episode, and a phrase or verb that I use in every episode.

So, for the substitution exercise you get a series of sentences here where I’ve used the synonyms, so to reschedule, to postpone, or to delay, instead of “to put off”.

And you have to either rewrite these sentences using “to put off” in the equivalent verb tense, or you can listen to and order your MP3 where you have to do this by speaking.

So you can do the exact same sentences but by audio. So it is up to you.

Depends on what you’re working on. So that’s a substitution exercise.

You get quite a few sentences there using those different synonyms, and you get to attach meaning to these different verbs that don’t necessarily mean exactly the same thing all the time, but that share meanings in these things.

You know, I love teaching synonyms. And again the answers are at the bottom of the PDF.

Then we had the slang exercise section where I just write out the different slang terms that are used and give you a chance to use them in a sentence, to just practice them briefly if you’re trying to learn Australian slang.

And then I have the second last exercise, exercise five, is a pronunciation or connected speech exercise.

So this is for people who really want to sound like an Australian and pronounce things just as I pronounce them.

And so in this exercise here we’ve gone over how the Gerund ending of different verbs the “-ing” ending actually turns into “-in'”. “-ing” turning into “-in'”.

And so, again, this is a substitution exercise where I will give you an audio file that plays you me saying it both ways, and you have to insert in the pronunciation changed.

So for instance, here I would have said “I’m going home”, and then you will then hear “I’m goin’ home”, “I’m goin’ home”.

So that slight difference in pronunciation shift to try and teach you to not only be able to say it, but to be able to understand it when you hear it.

So that is the pronunciation and connected speech section of each episode as well.

So, there’s quite a bit there. And again, (the) answers are at the bottom.

And then lastly, we have a grammar exercise.

And so this week we were comparing the different words “many” and “much”, and when to use them, using “much” with non-countable nouns, using “many” with countable nouns.

And you get in all of these sentences here in this section that you have to insert in the different words.

And again, you get the answers at the end. So these are the different things that I have to offer in the PDFs themselves.

And I’ll show you the answers section here at the bottom so you can see it.

There is also language learning tips and other ideas for you to go online and practice these things in other different ways depending on what you’re passionate about or interested in.

So here’s the answer’s section.

You can see all the listening comprehension questions followed by the answers.

You then can say the substitution exercise here, and I also write it out if it can be splays or left together.

If they’re both correct I give you both answers. The grammar exercise as well is all here.

So yeah that’s pretty much all there is to these PDFs.

I’ve also recently started doing “Fill in the gap” PDFs for people where I actually take out words from each sentence and leave gaps there for you to listen and try and fill out as you hear me say the words that are missing.

So I also include those.

So, the whole point of the Aussie English Supporter Pack is really to give you guys all of this extra material that you can use and you can pick the bits that you’re working on, whether it’s phrasal verbs, pronunciation, listening comprehension.

You don’t have to do everything, but I want you to be able to work on the things that are most important to you, and help you learn English better.

And then I also thought I would show you the Aussie English Virtual Classroom.

And so this is a private group here where we have different activities and private posts.

We break down different videos that people find. We chat about it.

At the moment, I have a daily phrasal verb that come up every single day, and we get the members to comment and write sentences and practice them.

And I come through and correct all of these different sentences, and we discuss it.

So, that’s what the Aussie English Virtual Classroom is like at the moment.

I’m hoping to add a lot more to it in the near future.

It’s also where you just get access to me more often.

So if you have questions, if you have things you’re worried about or confused about you can ask me at any time, and I will respond as quickly as possible.

So aside from that I guess I should show you the Members Space Episode List.

I just finished doing this today. That’s this page. We’ll load it up again.

And so, I’ve tried to make going through all these lessons a lot more easy, a lot easier, so that you can see all the previous episodes.

You can click here to go to the download section and get all of your files.

So they come up for every single episode here, you just have to click here to download them.

And, yeah, it should be a lot more intuitive and easier to navigate through all of these episodes as you’re working on them.

So if you’re interested in signing up for the Aussie English Supporter Pack, guys, all you have to do is come on the web site here and click “Learn Aussie English Faster”.

You click on that.

You scroll to the bottom, and all you have to do is click on your payment method, if you don’t use a credit card or if you want to use Pay Pal, and then enter your details, and click sign up.

You won’t get charged anything more than one dollar for the first month, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

And in order to do that all you have to do is go to your Account here and then click on Subscription.

And then go to Unsubscribe. It might not show you it here…

Yeah, it won’t show you because I obviously don’t have a paid subscription to my own service, but you would just go to subscriptions and unsubscribe at any time.

Anyway, guys I hope you’ve like that little introduction to the Aussie English Supporters Pack a little bit of the behind the scenes of what I’m trying to do here.

I really really recommend that you give it a try.

You know a dollar is close to nothing these days.

Even if you just try it for a month and download everything that’s on there.

I really want you to get all of this material and be able to use it and improve your English as much as possible.

And if you want all the stuff that’s coming out in the future, as well as to stay in the Aussie English Virtual Classroom, then also obviously I recommend that you stay signed up and keep helping me do what I’m trying to do with Aussie English.

So, thanks so much guys.

A special thanks to everyone who has already signed up and is helping me become able to support myself and continue to do this.

I’m not quite there yet.

I still have to work, obviously, but I’m slowly trying to get there, and just help you guys as much as possible take your English to the next level.

So, I hope you like this sort of behind the scenes video guys and I’ll see you soon.